OPINION:The question for the FG faithful is wheather the party can exploit their advantage in the polls and build on it, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
THE FINE Gael faithful travelled to Wexford this weekend for their national conference, buoyed up by the fact that the party is now better positioned than at any time since the early 1980s to challenge Fianna Fáil as the dominant force in Irish politics.
The economic gloom now enveloping the country will have untold consequences for all aspects of Irish life and the political consequences could be profound. The Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll last weekend put Fine Gael ahead of Fianna Fáil for the first time since the newspaper began regular polling in 1982.
It was not just that the main Opposition party had pulled ahead that caused political shockwaves, it was the fact that the Fine Gael lead was a substantial seven percentage points. If the result was repeated in a general election the party would become the biggest in the State since its foundation in 1933.
The big question for the delegates to the conference was whether that lead can be consolidated and increased because, extraordinary and all as it was to be ahead of Fianna Fáil, one swallow doesn't make a summer. The party has a lot of work to do to try and consolidate its new position.
Clearly reason for the Fine Gael rise and the Fianna Fáil collapse in the polls is the country's dire economic position. The good thing from Fine Gael's point of view, if not from the country's, is that things are not going to get better anytime soon and that provides the main Opposition party with a once in a lifetime opportunity.
In the past Fine Gael has been lumbered with the historic duty of taking power from Fianna Fáil just as the economy deteriorated, wrestling with the problem and being blamed for the consequences. It played this role on five occasions between the late 1940s and the late 1980s often doing a good job in very difficult circumstances but getting little or no thanks. In 1987 after five very difficult years in office the party's vote dropped below the 30 per cent mark for the first time since the 1950s and it has never fully recovered.
History almost repeated itself in last year's general election when Enda Kenny came within a whisker of being able to put a government together. Just two seats more for Fine Gael and two less for Fianna Fáil and he would now probably be presiding as taoiseach over the current economic disaster. Most Fine Gael TDs shudder when they think of the kind of abuse they would have to endure from Fianna Fáil, the media and the public in the current climate.
The best thing that has happened to Fine Gael in a generation is that Fianna Fáil has been left with the responsibility for cleaning up its own mess in the midst of a deep international recession. When, and if, a change of government happens the origin of the economic problems will then be clear.
That doesn't mean, however, that Fine Gael can sit back, blame the Government for everything, and wait for power to drop into its lap. The downturn is so severe that the voters will need to be convinced that an alternative government can do more than heap abuse on Government Ministers in the Dáil.
Fine Gael will have to provide some concrete ideas about how it would deal with the crisis if the party was in power. To be fair, it did respond earlier in the year, first with Leo Varadkar's proposed cull of quangos and then with Richard Bruton's call for a pay freeze for public servants earning over €50,000 a year.
Those measures indicated that Fine Gael was serious in trying to come up with solutions to problems and not simply engaging in negative criticism.
Moreover, the party appeared to grasp the scale of the crisis before the Government did. While Richard Bruton was calling for a pay freeze for better-paid public servants, the Government went ahead and shelled out a 2.5 per cent pay increase across the board. Even trade union leaders were astonished that the money was paid without a murmur when the public finances were in such bad shape.
When the Government finally responded in the Budget the public was not prepared for the spending cuts. Some cuts, notably the abolition of the medical card for the over-70s, were handled so badly that the Coalition suffered a potentially mortal blow to its authority. It was an opportunity for Fine Gael to make hay and the party exploited it.
Coming up with courageous policies to deal with the downturn will demand far more political courage and skill than denouncing the Government but in the long term it will pay off for Fine Gael.
One recurring theme in commentary about Fine Gael is whether the party leader, Enda Kenny, can win an election. There is no doubt that when it comes to opinion poll ratings he has struggled and should have capitalised more on the slump in Brian Cowen's rating.
For all that Kenny's record as leader has been impressive. He took over the job at a time when the conventional wisdom among media pundits was that Fine Gael was finished, after its disastrous 2002 election performance. Kenny put a huge effort into reviving the organisation and was rewarded with a successful local and Euro election performance in 2004. Then in the general election of 2007 Fine Gael gained 20 seats.
Now with the party's surge in the polls there is a real prospect of taking power after the next election. "If Fine Gael is seven points ahead of Fianna Fáil, we are on the road back, and I don't care who the leaders is," said one senior party figure.
Kenny also has the advantage that there is no obvious rival to contend with, so his leadership is under no immediate threat.