Political World
Political year that will live long in the memory
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
What kind of political year was 2016 – and will we remember it in a decade? What do we remember from 2006, for example, off the top of our heads? Or from 1996, for that matter?
From 1996, not a huge amount. There was still the fall-out from Charlie Haughey’s million euro and the McCracken Tribunal was underway.
From 2006, it was his successor Bertie Ahern’s travails the captured the public mood. The only reason I remember that is that I was on holidays when that story broke and I wasn’t sure if I should come home to cover it.
I’m sure five minutes on google would fill in all the gaps I’ve missed from ten and twenty years ago but there are somethings in life that can’t be googled…such as my impoverished memory!
For anoraks, the abiding memory of 2016 is that it was an election year – and an election year with a difference, producing the most indecisive and uncertain outcome in almost a century of democracy in our State.
And, of course, the pundits (present company included) got it all wrong. Sure, Enda Kenny became the first Fine Gael leader to lead his party to two successive terms in government. But it came at a cost, a loss of 25 seats.
The party steered the country back into solvency and sovereignty but the unpopular policies that were required to do so did not go down with the ungrateful public who gave Fine Gael a kicking and the Labour Party a mauling.
People knew that there would be a lot of churn and uncertainty in the election and the main beneficiaries of this would be the Independents and smaller parties. That was true to a certain extent.
A lot of new Independents were returned but none of the smaller parties made exceptional gains (unless you consider the AAA/PBP moving from four to six TDs was an achievement).
The Independent Alliance gained two also. One of the smaller parties, Renua, became an endangered species a little over a year after being established.
The two parties that made big gains were Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil. Sinn Féin was the coming party going into the election but it can never really match its poll showings in the actual polls.
Still a nine-seat gain was fine, even though it would have been more had not Gerry Adams performed so poorly in interviews and debates in the run-up to the election.
Fianna Fáil made a big comeback. It’s still some way below its traditional level of support but compared to 2011, its 44 seat was a big success, especially its re-establishment of a strong foothold in Dublin.
Everybody believes now that the party will return to its natural status as the biggest party after the election.
But therein lies another problem that might be an ongoing and intractable one for Irish electoral politics. The total support level for the traditional big three has been declining at a steady pace for two decades.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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