ANALYSIS:Consistently high in the opinion polls, Fine Gael on the eve of its ardfheis faces important challenges in coming months, writes MARK HENNESSY
BLESSED WITH solid opinion poll figures, Fine Gael believes increasingly – with just some niggling doubts – that it will form the core of the next government.
For months, a succession of different polls has placed support for the party in the early 30s – enough, with Labour support, to oust Fianna Fáil.
The question, perhaps, is not whether Fine Gael is doing well currently, because clearly it is. The question is, rather, whether the party is doing well enough.
In times like these, Opposition parties should be thriving. In the Dáil, Fine Gael faces a Government struggling with a 1929-style depression and its own communication failings.
Nevertheless, the solidity of Fine Gael’s ratings are impressive given that it, unlike Labour for the most part, adopted tougher economic choices from early on.
However, there is the matter of leadership.
Five years ago, Enda Kenny ignited the party’s hopes of rebirth when he led it to sterling performances in the local and European elections.
Since then, he has done much to improve the party’s organisation, to bind together a potentially fractious parliamentary party and to motivate the grassroots; and he has shown decent judgment on many of the main policy issues of the day.
He has not, however, inspired the public, and, frankly, he is never likely to do so. None of this means, however, that he cannot be the next taoiseach.
A man can be chairman or chief. Kenny has neither the personality, nor the skills, to be chief; but he could be chairman.
His Dáil performances are – mostly, but not always – stolid, long-winded and sometimes aimless; and they could be sharpened immeasurably if they were cut in length by half.
Nevertheless, Dáil appearances are not everything. Before Bertie Ahern’s departure from office last year it was common wisdom that Brian Cowen would destroy Kenny in daily head-to-head confrontations in the Dáil when they finally faced up to each other.
Even Cowen’s admirers would find it hard to argue that he has so far succeeded in doing that. Indeed, Kenny’s contributions – even if they do so accidentally and not by design – have had the result of provoking Cowen’s worst boot-boy traits, to the latter’s disadvantage.
Nevertheless, Kenny’s failure fully, if at all, to exploit the TV-equipped pitch that is the Dáil chamber has left room for Eamon Gilmore.
And the latter has taken it. Indeed, Gilmore’s sharp soundbites in the Dáil are at the core of the Labour rise in support in recent times.
On policy issues Kenny has never managed to convince that he is comfortable with detail, as he showed again this week at the party’s pre-budget document launch.
However, he has had the sense – mostly – to stand aside and pass the questions on to colleagues, and he is fortunate to have Richard Bruton by his side.
So far, Bruton has been the Opposition star of the Dáil; incisive, well-informed and consistent – and Kenny is doubly fortunate that Bruton is not a plotter.
And nor are many others. For the first time in years, a meeting of the FG parliamentary party last week became news after Kenny clashed with TDs Lucinda Creighton and Ulick Burke.
In the eyes of some, the discord signalled early leadership tremors though there is no evidence for it and, indeed, there is a lot of evidence in the other direction. But that is not to say that the leadership issue is dead and buried in all circumstances.
The local and European elections in June will set the tone for the final chapter of the current Dáil, be it short or long.
In 2004 Fine Gael did superbly, coming within a dozen local authority seats of Fianna Fáil, but it did so on the back of an extraordinary vote “bounce”.
It won 32 per cent of the seats with just 28 per cent of the vote. This time, senior Fine Gael figures are careful not to overstate the target, regardless of Fianna Fáil’s unpopularity.
And they are right not to do so.
Fianna Fáil is running tightly controlled tickets and it will have to suffer a near-fatal haemorrhage to sustain significant seat losses, though it may still do so.
On the European stage, Kenny has a difficult act to reprise, given the scale of the five-seat success in 2004; particularly in East constituency where Avril Doyle is stepping down.
And there is the unknown of Libertas, whose founder, Declan Ganley, has targeted Fine Gael North West candidate, sitting MEP Jim Higgins, for attack.
So far, the main political parties dismiss Ganley, though he is unlikely to make it easy for his enemies by simply repeating his 2007 Lisbon campaign.
A good performance in both elections – particularly the locals – would set Kenny and Fine Gael up for the general election.
But the dividing line for Kenny between success and difficulty is very narrow: any stumble will raise questions, first, about his ability to take the party down the final straight to victory. In some circumstances, those questions will raise issues about his leadership.
Mark Hennessy is a Political Correspondent of The Irish Times