Political World
Shifting sands steer Fine Gael closer to ‘unthinkable’ Coalition with Fianna Fáil
The Fine Gaeler on the other end of telephone line said it was difficult, very difficult. The tone of the voice was one of deep frustration – you could visualise him throwing his hands up in a ‘what’s the point’ gesture.
The theme of the conversation was the ongoing difficulties of being in a coalition government with Labour and the headaches of agreeing on things that were called compromises in public but which this senior Fine Gael person viewed as fudges.
The conversation turned to Fianna Fáil and a few of its politicians whom this politician knew well.
“A pleasure to work with, to do business with,” he commented on them. “You know where they are coming from,” he said. “It would be much easier to be in a coalition with those fellas.”
And so it might. Coalitions are messy because what might have been sharp and focused becomes fuzzy when both sides seek a common position. Politics is always about finding the easiest way out, or the least painful possible way of taking a hard decision. That can sometimes turn out to be very messy.
The conversation threw up two interesting themes. The first was the increasing difficulties in retaining a coherent front in this Coalition. The second is the love that dare not speak its name: the possibility of a coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil after the next General Election.
If you look at the usual indicators that measure a Government’s performance, they aren’t all that bad for a Coalition reaching the midpoint of its five year term.
Figures published by the Central Statistics Office this week showed that the Government deficit last year was 7.6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, a full percentage point better than the target set out for the Troika.
In addition, the Government has secured important deals that will reduce the payment burden on the promissory notes as well as the interest on the loans of €67.5 billion we received from the Troika as part of the bailout.
But you wouldn’t cop any of that from reading or listening to the headlines in the past few weeks. The collapse of the Croke Park II deal with public sector unions was a huge political setback and has thrown a dampener on the Coalition’s soon-to-be-unveiled strategy of telling voters that the worst is now over and things can only get better.
Over the last fortnight, I have had a few chats with senior Ministers on the Fine Gael side. Their message has been that December 2012 Budget was the last of the really hard ones and that the next three Budgets would have as much cheer as jeer in them. The deal on the promissory notes plus a good year last year has given the Government some wriggle room.
According to one very senior figure, that would all give scope to give something back to the hard-pressed middle-income taxpayers . . . a reward or bonus for all the sacrifices they made.
The collapse of the pay deal with the public sector unions has thrown cold water on all of that. With teachers, nurses, Gardaí and lower paid workers in a bellicose mood, the last thing they want to hear is that the Government is planning to give a reward to middle-income earners.
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
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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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