Wandering around the RDS count centre for the Dublin city constituencies as the results of the general election came tumbling in late last February, Finian McGrath looked like someone who may have seen his last election.
The lengthy count for his Dublin Bay North constituency saw the 20 candidates whittled down to the five TDs elected to the 32nd Dáil, with McGrath narrowly taking the last seat on the 15th count.
Having just about made it over the line, political whispers speculated that McGrath might hang up his canvass cards at the next election, with a stint as a Super-junior Minister for Disabilities, an area that is close to his heart, under his belt.
Yet almost a year on from the election, the Marino Independent has different ideas.
“I’ve settled into the job, and I would love to serve another term. I will be standing in the next election, and I’ll stand on the work I did over the three or four years or however long this Government lasts. It would be a great honour to stand again and serve.”
McGrath, along with friend Shane Ross, was the driving force behind the Independent Alliance, a loose collection of non-party candidates initially dismissed as a ragbag but which made its way into the Government as a distinct grouping.
At times the Alliance seemed almost amateurish – such as the occasion when media were locked out of a pre-election event in Tullamore, only for Ross's opening address to be carried over the hotel's PA system into neighbouring rooms. But what stood to the group in the end was its willingness to hang together. Only Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice fell at the last as they eventually joined Fine Gael in the minority Government.
McGrath believes that the political fragmentation ushered in at the last election, which saw huge support for Independents, is here to stay, and the Independent Alliance with it.
“I think politics has changed. I don’t think the bigger parties are going to get the big bloc votes they used to get before. There will always be a role for Independents. I’d love to see more Independents in government.”
Policy terms
McGrath accepts he and other members of his group are perhaps more in line with
Fianna Fáil
thinking in policy terms, but says Micheál Martin just did not have the numbers to form a minority government.
In that torturous weeks’ long process of government formation, the Alliance and other Independents sat down with Fianna Fáil, and McGrath said he was offered a full Cabinet position. However, the numbers just weren’t there, and he says Fine Gael knew it had to emphasise society as much as the economy if it was to stand any chance of gaining power.
“There were three clinchers,” he says of Fine Gael.
"First of all they had the numbers, secondly they had the super-junior for disabilities on the table, and the third issue was the key policy issues in relation to disabilities. I got them into the programme for government plus a few other issues like Beaumont Hospital, cystic fibrosis and education issues."
Yet settling into the Government took some time, with disputes over pet projects of Alliance members, such as Waterford hospital for John Halligan and judicial reform for Ross.
One of the most bitter rows with Fine Gael came on the issue of free Dáil votes, crystallised by a dispute over a Private Member's Bill from Mick Wallace that proposed allowing abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities.
“We couldn’t understand why they were all getting upset about abortion. We don’t get this.
“And the reason why we don’t get it is because we have different views in the Independent Alliance but we never impose our views on anybody else, and it really gets up our back when we see people – whether you are on the pro-choice side or the anti-choice side. We don’t believe people should impose moral and ethical views on anybody. We felt really cheesed off.”
McGrath and Ross, as well as Halligan, eventually voted for the Wallace Bill against the strong opposition of Taoiseach Enda Kenny and others, leading to criticism that they were ignoring collective Cabinet responsibility.
Confidence issues
“I accept that the Cabinet has to be bound about confidence issues, financial issues and the programme for government, but I don’t buy the line that we have to agree on everything, and I also don’t think that it is good for politics.”
The minority Coalition has now bedded down, he believes, and he claims recent controversy over the Government's rental strategy, when Minister for Housing Simon Coveney faced down Fianna Fáil opposition, has bound it together.
McGrath says the Coalition will now stay in place to implement the three budgets Fianna Fáil has agreed to facilitate in the confidence and supply deal.
“There is a sense even when I was talking to the Fianna Fáil lads and lassies after [the Dáil vote on the rental strategy]. They said: ‘we said we’d give you three budgets and we’ll give you three budgets.’ In fairness to them, they have that mantra.”
Whether all members of the Independent Alliance stay in Government that long is another question, and McGrath accepts that any of them could walk away if their policies and priorities are not delivered.
He also accepts that if anyone is to walk, they will walk alone. Other members of the Alliance will not follow. “Well, that’s part of being an Independent.”