Political World
Will Reform Alliance become the new PD’s – or just Fine Gael wearing a different coat?
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Perhaps it’s the political anorak in me, but not alone am I old enough to remember the first ‘monster rallies’ of the Progressive Democrats in 1986 – I have to admit that as a student I actually attended the meeting in Leisureland.
I’d become addicted to current affairs at school and one of my favourite journeys was the walk up from Glenard to O’Halloran’s shop on Threadneedle Road on the last Thursday of every month to get the freshly minted copy of Magill magazine.
Charles Haughey was always a phenomenon, a figure of intense curiosity and interest… irrespective of whether you hated him or adored him. And with Haughey there were the two states of mind – there never seemed to be any in between.
And Magill had a fascination with him along with everybody else. But what marked it out was its ability to take politics and lift its coverage from the humdrum to the lively, provocative and questioning.
The putsch against Des O’Malley within Fianna Fáil had been a dominant theme in the magazine for months. And in the early months of 1986, a new party was formed comprised mainly of Fianna Fáil dissidents.
But there were a few other key figures from other parties – mainly malcontents – including another phenomenon in the making, Michael McDowell, and the less interesting and less savoury Fine Gael TD Michael Keating.
I have some memories of the Leisureland meeting. For one it was packed to capacity and it looked like a Japanese commuter platform at rush hour with people being physically squeezed in the door.
Of course, the Galway meeting was given an added impetus by the sensational defection of Bobby Molloy to the new outfit. With the likes of Mary Harney and Cork TD Pearse Wyse already on board, each meeting acted as a catalyst transforming a Fianna Fáil splinter group into something else entirely.
It was clear at that meeting that at that particular moment in time those present were fed-up with the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael hegemony, particularly with a very divided Fianna Fáil and there was an appetite for something new – a new force in Irish politics that was not to the left not that owed its beginnings to whichever side you belonged to in the civil war.
Over the subsequent two and a half decades, it has become clear that the need for a new niche party was very much of its time and became less so as time went on.
Although the PDs began as a home mainly for disgruntled Fianna Fáilers, it was Fine Gael from which it stole most of the votes in subsequent elections.
The space it had carved out for itself ideologically over time coalesced with that of Fianna Fáil, especially when the two parties were in government together. McDowell’s choice for the PDs – be radical or redundant – was borne out. It was the latter that was to be its fate.
When it comes to permanence in Irish politics there are the two main parties, the Labour Party, and (unless the party loses its way completely) Sinn Fein.
Is there a need for a new niche party? Well, if there was one, I would say it would have to be slightly to the left as the market to the right of the graph seems to be very well served already. The problem with the left is that it’s not one idea – it’s a myriad of ideas always competing with each other.
That’s one of the reasons you get so many splinters, so much fragmentation, so many hairline cracks. On the right the message is much more simple – capitalism needs no grand or intellectual theorist to explain what it’s about.
On Saturday, the Reform Alliance is holding a day-long conference in the RDS in Dublin. First things first. The group of seven parliamentarians (five TDs and two senators) have gone to great lengths to say they are an alliance, never as a party.
The only real question is, politically, is this alliance the precursor to another new party… PDs for the 21st century.
Again what’s emerging is being formed from a group of dissident from a particular party. All were expelled, with the exception of Denis Naughten, over the abortion legislation.
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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