History shows the Government has good reason to fear demands to quickly hold three outstanding byelections
THE CONCERTED attempt by the Opposition to force the Government into holding the three outstanding byelections is clearly designed to bring on the next general election sooner rather than later. The Coalition is naturally resisting the pressure, but the longer it puts off the evil day, the more significance will ultimately attach to the byelection results – and the greater the chance of an unplanned election.
The fact there is set no timeframe for filling vacancies in the Dáil is an anomaly. In Britain, byelections are held immediately a vacancy arises; in most continental systems, the next person on the list from the previous election automatically succeeds to the seat.
In fact, Ireland is the only country in Europe to combine a proportional representation electoral system with byelections as a means of filling casual vacancies. In the first-past-the-post system in Britain, immediate byelections are required to ensure a constituency is not unrepresented for too long, but in Ireland that issue doesn’t arise due to our multi-seat system.
The practice in the early decades of the Dáil was to have byelections within a few weeks. When Kevin O’Higgins was assassinated on July 10th, 1927, the consequent byelection was held just over a month later, on August 24th.
In more recent decades, byelections have usually been held a number of months after the vacancy has arisen. The byelections in Dublin South and Dublin Central, held on June 5th last year, came 11 months after the death of Séamus Brennan, and six months after the death of Tony Gregory. Byelections for two vacancies during the lifetime of the last Dáil, due to the resignation of John Bruton and Charlie McCreevy in November 2005, were both held three months later.
Governments have had a terrible record in byelections over the past few decades. The last time a government party won was almost 30 years ago, in July 1982, when Noel Treacy of Fianna Fáil retained the party’s seat in Galway East. The fact opposition parties have had such a good run in byelections has proven no guide to the result of subsequent general elections. For instance, Fianna Fáil lost all six byelections between 1997 and 2002, but had an emphatic victory in the general election.
By contrast, the danger of postponing byelections was graphically illustrated in the summer of 1994. At that stage, the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition, which had the biggest Dáil majority in the history of the State, had postponed two byelections for 18 months, following the departure of Pádraig Flynn for Brussels as Ireland’s EU commissioner and the resignation of Dr John O’Connell from the Dáil after he was dropped from the cabinet.
The two parties suffered a humiliating rebuff in the byelections, which were won by Fine Gael and Democratic Left. The real significance of the result, though, was that it changed Dáil arithmetic and created an opportunity for Labour later that year to pull out of an unhappy political relationship and form a rainbow coalition with Fine Gael and Democratic Left. It was the only time a new government was formed mid-term without a general election.
In November 1979, the loss of two byelections in Cork precipitated the departure of Jack Lynch from office. Dissent was already being orchestrated in the party by Charles Haughey, but the byelection results fanned this into open revolt and Lynch decided to call it a day earlier than he had planned.
In 1965, the victory of Labour’s Eileen Desmond in the Mid-Cork byelection prompted Seán Lemass to dissolve the Dáil, where the result meant he no longer had a majority, and call a general election before the new TD could even take her seat.
It is the capacity of negative byelection results to prompt political upheaval in the form of leadership heaves, coalition tensions or even a general election that has made Brian Cowen so wary about naming the day for the three outstanding contests. And it is why the Opposition parties are so keen to press ahead. There has been a vacancy in Donegal South West now for 11 months, which is getting to the limit for byelection delays. By autumn, it will be harder to justify postponing Dublin South and Waterford for very much longer.
The timing of two other electoral events could have an important bearing on the byelections. One is the long-promised children’s referendum, supposed to take place in the autumn. Mary O’Rourke, the chair of the all-party committee which came up with an agreed wording, is pressing for the autumn deadline to be met, and is insisting it need not be coupled with byelections. The argument has won wide acceptance, but it seems that legal delays in drafting the legislation for the referendum might hold it up in any case.
More relevant is the plan by Minister for the Environment John Gormley to have the first directly elected Lord Mayor of Dublin installed by autumn. Again, legislation is required before that can take place, but the Minister has insisted he wants it to be done – and failure to proceed as planned would be a blow to his standing.
The problem is that a mayoral contest in Dublin is the last thing Fianna Fáil wants this year, given the party’s current low standing in the capital, particularly as it would be impossible to argue against holding the byelections on the same day. The inevitable drubbing in the mayoral election for both Coalition parties, allied to potential defeats in the three byelections, would raise the prospect of all kinds of political instability.
It is something Brian Cowen would dearly like to avoid for as long as possible, but the Greens don’t want to lose face by putting off the Dublin mayoral election until next year.