Let’s consider what might at first seem an odd question: what should the current Government do to prepare for the probability that Sinn Féin might replace it next year or at the latest in early 2025?
The question seems odd because the Government parties will answer, of course, that they fully intend to win the next general election. The issue doesn’t arise.
And Sinn Féin, for its part, will answer that the question itself is insulting. It implies that there is some reason for the State to be especially anxious about the prospect of its institutions falling into Sinn Féin’s hands – which the party would deny vigorously.
Both of these answers have some element of validity. Sinn Féin’s polling numbers are extremely and consistently strong, but they don’t yet add up to anything close to a Dáil majority. The mood for change is powerful but moods are not mathematics.
If the party is to get into government it will be as part of a coalition. But so far Sinn Féin seems to be making little real effort to build relations with the parties it would need as partners: Labour, the Greens, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit. Or, indeed, Fianna Fáil.
Partly this is because Sinn Féin has something of a superiority complex when it comes to other parties and their TDs. It would find the idea of a charm offensive rather demeaning – but without it the putative partners feel like flies being eyed up by a spider.
Partly, too, it’s because Sinn Féin does not seem to have a very clear sense of what kind of coalition it will have to build. Officially it wants to lead an alliance of the Left. Unofficially there is still an attraction to the relative simplicity of a deal with Fianna Fáil.
These uncertainties mean that the current Government parties can still convince themselves that they do not have to concede the high probability of Mary Lou McDonald becoming Taoiseach – and therefore don’t have to do anything to prepare for it.
[ Pat Leahy: What is this Government actually for, beyond not being Sinn Féin?Opens in new window ]
On the other side of the equation there is a need to avoid hysteria about Sinn Féin. It has long since ceased to be a revolutionary party. Its arrival in government would not be the seismic event it would once have been.
That does not mean, though, that it would be a perfectly normal transfer of power either. It is not normal for any developed democracy to find itself being governed by a movement that was, until relatively recently, dedicated to overthrowing it by violence.
It would be stupid not to recognise that Sinn Féin has come a hell of a long way. But equally stupid not to recognise that it has had a hell of a long way to go.
McDonald now insists that Sinn Féin has completely dropped its former article of faith, which was that it did not recognise the legitimacy of the State. She dismisses any suggestions to the contrary as “silly”. But it’s only three years ago that we had David Cullinane, while celebrating his own huge vote in Waterford, shouting “up the ‘Ra” and his election agent Michael Doyle telling ecstatic supporters that “we broke the Free State”.
The party’s constitution does not recognise the State, its institutions or Bunreacht na hÉireann, but rather claims allegiance to “the sovereign Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916″ – an entity that does not exist in reality and that can, therefore, be taken to mean whatever Sinn Féin wants it to mean at any given moment. Every member of the party has to sign a pledge of allegiance to this nebulous republic – one that presumably overrides loyalty to the State.
It’s not silly to recognise that Sinn Féin has, in its DNA, what might most benignly be characterised as a deep ambivalence towards the State. That ambiguity means that the State should also recognise a degree of risk in the potential accession to power of such a party.
So what should the Government be doing to anticipate this eventuality? It should be strengthening Irish democracy by making it more tamper-proof. Without resorting to scaremongering it should ask itself a basic question: how would you go about limiting the capacity of any government (not just one led by Sinn Féin) to undermine the democratic nature of the State? Three very obvious things come to mind.
The first is to strengthen accountability and transparency at every level of government and public administration. Stop governments railroading legislation through the Dáil, democratise local government, make the Seanad a properly representative and effective second chamber, strengthen Oireachtas committees, increase the powers and funding of the Ombudsman.
The second is to make sure that public service broadcasting is fully protected from governmental and political pressure. The existence of a vigorous, well-funded public broadcaster is a potent force for the preservation of democracy. The Government should establish a system of public funding for RTÉ and TG4 that is ring-fenced and indexed to inflation so that no administration can use the threat of withholding money to bring the broadcasters to heel.
Third, expand the powers and resources of the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO). The need to do this has long been obvious anyway, but the prospect of Sinn Féin in government makes it all the more urgent.
What we already know is that Sinn Féin cynically exploits its all-island status to raise money in the North in ways that are banned in the South. The party has received, for example, €4.6 million from the will of an English donor – even while the legal limit for individual donations to parties in the Republic is €2,500.
To stop a government party from being able to suck in money from abroad we need legislation that gives SIPO the power to monitor the flow of party funds much more actively, and laws that force all parties contesting elections in the Republic to adhere to its funding rules, regardless of where they are operating.
As we get closer to an election the Government parties will no doubt talk up the alleged threat to democracy of Sinn Féin in power. But if they actually believe in the reality of that threat they should be acting now to minimise it.
There’s no point trying to scare voters away from Sinn Féin by warning them that our democracy is vulnerable to being taken over by dark forces and unelected influences. If you want people to believe in those vulnerabilities you have to show that you are serious about reducing them.
The way to protect democracy is always through more and deeper democracy: more checks and balances, more effective means of calling those in power to account, more independent sources of public information and discussion, more limits on the flow of dark money.