Political guessing game is like Third Secret of Fatima

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

In 1981 there was an international incident when an Aer Lingus plane was hijacked. The Minister of Transport at the time was Albert Reynolds and it was his job to brief the world media about the developing events.

Initially it was thought the hijacker was Iranian but it turned out he was an Australian called Larry Downey, a former Trappist Monk who was not the full shilling.

A BBC reporter asked Reynolds what the man who had held up the crew and passenger was?

“He wants us to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima,” replied Reynolds, in all seriousness. For that was indeed the deranged man’s bizarre demand.

“What on earth is that?” asked the BBC reporter.

The incredulous look Reynolds gave the reporter was hilarious. He just could not get it that somebody did not know what that was. “It’s a religious secret,” he finally said.

Since the end of February, I field one question twenty times a day. It’s what’s going to happen next?

I feel as able to give the answer as Albert Reynolds did when facing Larry Downey’s demands.

But unlike the BBC reporter, the situation which seems a bit banal and bizarre in objective terms, seems quite natural. What we are looking at now, essentially, is a “religious secret”.

There are only four options to consider between now and sometime in April when the final call will be made.

We could have a Fine Gael minority government; a Fianna Fáil minority government; a grand coalition between the two big parties – or another election.

The fourth scenario might happen but is the most unlikely. None of the big parties want an election to happen immediately because they sense (rightly) they will make no gains and will probably be punished for doing so.

So let’s look at the other three in a bit of detail to see if we can prise together the pros and cons of each.

Both of the big parties are a good deal short of a majority and, in reality, would need to rely on the other to form a government.

But that does not mean the other party has to support it on every occasion. If the other party were to abstain on key votes (Budgets, no confidence votes etc.) the target suddenly becomes more obtainable.

Since Seán O Fearghaíl’s election as Ceann Comhairle Fianna Fáil has 43 TDs in its block. If the party were to abstain that would mean you subtract 43 from 157 to give you the number of votes in the mix. It would leave 114 which would mean Fine Gael would need to muster 57 votes.

It has 50 at present so would require a further seven locked-in votes. One of those is Michael Lowry’s even though Fine Gael hasn’t asked for it. So it would need at least another six.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.