INSIDE POLITICS:Despite the prospect of almost certain victory in the next election, Opposition TDs too are daunted by the sheer scale of the problems, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
Fianna Fáil and Green Party Ministers emerged from the first Cabinet meeting after the August holidays expressing soothing noises about unity of purpose and their ability to cope with the ongoing banking crisis while framing another extremely difficult budget.
The reality, however, is that fear is stalking the corridors of Leinster House. The gargantuan scale of the problem at Anglo Irish Bank and the way it is both prolonging the wider banking Irish crisis and doing further damage to the public finances has badly shaken Government TDs.
Anglo has become so politically toxic for Fianna Fáil that its TDs are in despair at the damage it is going to do them. When the Dáil went into recess in early July they believed that the country had come through the worst of the banking crisis, even if the cost was enormous. They are now appalled to find that Anglo has come back to haunt them, and even more appalled at the electoral implications for themselves.
Whether the Coalition can survive the challenges ahead over the next few months and make it as far as Christmas is now an open question. While it is in the interests of Government TDs to put off an election for as long as possible, given the mood of the electorate, many are acutely aware that events could spin out of control.
In the run-up to the Cabinet meeting, the media focused on tensions between the two Coalition parties over the best approach to adopt towards Anglo but the potential for political instability goes much wider than that.
One of the notable features of the current Dáil is the way Fianna Fáil TDs have been peeling away from the party on individual issues. While they generally back the Government in critical votes, pressure on them will inevitably grow as the Coalition becomes more unpopular and an election gets ever closer.
With more tough decisions inevitable in the months ahead, the possibility of further defections from Fianna Fáil cannot be ruled out. That in turn will place more pressure on the three Independents who back the Government – Jackie Healy Rae, Michael Lowry and Noel Grealish – to look to their own best interests. None of them will want to be the last TD keeping a deeply unpopular Government in office.
When the Dáil resumes next month, the Greens, the Independents and disgruntled Fianna Fáil TDs will all be looking at each other to see if anybody looks like losing their nerve and making a bolt for the Opposition benches. The other side of the coin is that the two left-wing Dublin Independents, Finian McGrath and Maureen O’Sullivan made a point of backing the Government in some crucial votes before the summer and may continue that policy of tactical support in order to avoid an early election.
There is no knowing what will happen, but the sheer scale of the obstacles ahead will impose its own strain, never mind the impact of inevitable unknown events.
The Government can take a crumb of comfort from the fact that it defied the prophets of doom last autumn when it managed to get over a series of very difficult hurdles, beginning with the Lisbon Treaty referendum and ending with the budget. This time around the mountain could be an even bigger one to climb for psychological as well as practical reasons.
What kept Coalition TDs going last year was the belief that it was the darkest hour before the dawn and a tough budget would set the country on the road to recovery, giving them at least a reasonable chance of re-election in 2012. By contrast, the bleak mood this autumn threatens to sap the basic will to survive.
The banking crisis has rumbled on despite all the taxpayers’ money thrown at it while the public finances are still in a perilous state. While the latest exchequer figures show that this year’s budget is on target, there is
still a yawning gap of around € 20 billion between tax revenue and Government expenditure.
Spirits are a bit brighter on the Opposition side of the Dáil but, despite the prospect of almost certain victory in the next election, Fine Gael and Labour TDs too are daunted by the sheer scale of the problems facing the country.
Whatever they say in public, most of them have no illusions about the fact that they will be required to make deeply unpopular decisions when they achieve office.
The two parties are unlikely to spell out in their election manifestos what precisely they intend to do when in office.
While Fianna Fáil will naturally try to flush them out, the lesson of the British general election is that the electorate doesn’t really expect Opposition parties to give them the bad news and is even likely to punish them if they do. Opposition leaders often engage in posturing by claiming they want an immediate election, but Enda Kenny and Éamon Gilmore now give the impression of men who mean it when they say that they want to remove this Government from office and get the election over and done with as quickly as possible.
Hopefully, they both have a good idea of what they intend to do when they achieve power. There will be no time after the next election for the tedious negotiations on a programme for government that have become customary since 1989.
Quick and decisive action on the major issues facing the country will be required to stabilise financial markets and give some hope to the people that there is light at the end of the tunnel.