POLITICAL POSTURING is no substitute for leadership. Twelve weeks ago, Dáil members engaged in paroxysms of protest over stag hunting and dog breeding legislation, even as the economy stagnated and unemployment grew. Now they are coming back. But nothing appears to have changed. Backbenchers are again threatening revolt while the two major parties look with jaundiced eyes at the performance of their leaders.
There is a desperate need to provide a sense of economic purpose and direction: to give hope to the hundreds of thousands who are out of work and to the tens of thousands who are now considering emigration. Instead of that, Fianna Fáil TDs – in desperate efforts to save their seats – are demanding concessions on local health issues while the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has adopted an obstructionist approach to Ministers promoting Ireland abroad. Fear, frustration and self-interest are driving these developments.
Having survived a leadership challenge, Mr Kenny adopted a tough guy approach to Government and announced that traditional “pairing” arrangements, provided by Fine Gael for Ministers on official business, would be severely limited. The first casualty in that regard was Minister for Education Mary Coughlan who was forced to cancel a promotional trip to the United States organised by Enterprise Ireland. This State is in urgent need of economic development and positive foreign publicity and such obstruction reflects badly on Fine Gael. The political miscalculation was accentuated when the Labour Party offered to facilitate the Minister, thereby aspiring to an enhanced political status in the Dáil, something neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael would relish.
Jockeying for position is likely to intensify between the various parties and their supporters in the coming Dáil session. What Mr Kenny described as “the end game” may be approaching for the Government but many important decisions remain to be taken and vital interests have to be protected. Within a matter of days, we are likely to learn what the Anglo Irish Bank disaster will eventually cost the taxpayer. The terms of the December budget, involving savings of more than €3 billion will have to be decided. The Government will have to show progress in securing flexibility and reforms within the public service through the Croke Park deal while, at the same time, producing a realistic job creation programme for the private sector.
There will be tensions within Government as the Green Party pushes for legislation that will ban corporate donations to political parties and provides a timescale for a directly elected Lord Mayor of Dublin. There will be demands for a referendum on children’s rights and that three long-pending byelections be held at an early date. An embattled Taoiseach with a fading Dáil majority has already signalled these contests may be postponed until next year. The Government has lost its way and become tired and stale. But its appetite for power remains unimpaired.