Political landscape takes on different look in present Dail

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

Jim Daly is a Dáil Deputy for Cork South West; a former schoolteacher, he’s a nice guy, and he’s not a fan of Enda Kenny. He’s also a member of a relatively rare species, known as the Fine Gael backbencher.

Fine Gael has only 50 TDs and 27 of them have some Government Ministers or another. That means that there are only 23 Fine Gael backbenchers – possibly the lowest number ever for the main party in a serving government.

This Government also has more committees than most previous government. There are 15 committees to match each Department and then there are a handful of standing committees like the PAC and the Committee on Procedures and Privileges.

In addition there are a number of new strategic committee, such as the Budget Oversight Committee, the Future of Health Committee. Then there are ad hoc committees set up to look at, and report on, specific topical issues such as housing, water, and abortion.

The upshot is that Daly is a member of eight committees. He is also the chair of an inter-parliamentary committee and stands in to chair the Dail a couple of sessions each week. If you are thinking of a guy who is running from pillar to post, he is it.

He spends his morning doing the rounds of the committee room, flitting out of one of which he is a member, going into the other of which he is also a member. The afternoons he spends in the Dáil. Like everybody else in this minority government he feels slightly over-extended.

The 32nd Dáil, now a year old, is very difference from all previous iterations. Much of it stemmed from the very unusual outcome of the election, which forced radical changes in the way the Oireachtas goes about its business.

There have been minority governments before, quite a few of them, but none as minority as this. Fine Gael is 28 seats short of a majority and must rely on Fianna Fáil abstentions for key votes.

In an Irish solution to an Irish problem, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have not merged officially, but have merged unofficially when it has suited both and their shared values have been attacked. That was most apparent when the Apple tax judgement went against Ireland.

Fianna Fáil is unlikely to pull down the Government, knowing it too will have to do a similar deal sometime in the future.

To read Harry’s column in full, please see this week’s Connacht Tribune.