Should Fianna Fáil organise in Northern Ireland? Cecilia Keaveneysays Fianna Fáil's vision of prosperity can help to end tribal politics in Northern Ireland while Robin Wilsonsays the move would end the Government's role as an honest broker and signal a sad end to the SDLP.
Yes Cecilia Keaveney"Come the day and come the hour"? As the 32 counties united in the sad reality of defeat in the Rugby World Cup, is it time to muse on the rugby solution to an all-Ireland sporting problem, "come the day and come the hour", and ask is it not time for Fianna Fáil to grasp the nettle and not to "seek the power or the glory" but "come to answer our country's call" for all of the four proud provinces of Ireland that Derry man Phil Coulter spoke of in his composition?
I believe that time has come and, against the background of the Taoiseach's announcement that Fianna Fáil is to develop a strategy for organising on an all-Ireland basis, I will be among those pressing for an ambitious strategy which would see Fianna Fáil contest elections to Dáil Éireann and, in time, to the Assembly.
There will be many other voices, opinions and potential strategies to be heard in that debate.
Mine were formed on the Inishowen peninsula, in the economic hinterland of Derry, where partition and the Troubles wrought real social and economic pain and where Fianna Fáil's drive for the Good Friday agreement and the all-island economy is now making a real difference to people's lives.
For many years now, activists in my own area, and in Derry in particular, have asked me when Fianna Fáil would be enabled to function on a 32-county basis. Without trying to be parochial, but in an effort to put a context on what I say, it is Derry, the city of my birth and my neighbouring county for most of my life, that I can relate to in this question of why at all and why now.
Politics for six of the nine counties of Ulster has been tribal - the Rottweiler being pitted against the Alsatian, as one constituent (recently moved to Donegal from Derry) that I canvassed in my recent election campaign described his last vote in the assembly elections.
Though I am not innocent enough to believe that the emergence of Fianna Fáil on the other side of the Border will break down these divisions in their entirety, I do believe that, in the context of the return to devolved government, our brand of pro-prosperity, pro-growth and pro-agreement politics can play a real role in transforming the North as we have transformed the South. In doing so I would hope we could play a role in overcoming the divisions of the past 40-odd years in the Six Counties and begin the politics of people, not tribes.
My constituents want joined-up thinking between North and South. They want strategic solutions to daily problems. If water, waste, transport, access issues are basic to Derry or Donegal people, are they not fundamental to the people of the northwest?
If employment opportunities are enhanced by access and infrastructure, is the "eastern corridor mentality" which focuses on the corridor from Dublin to Belfast helping or hindering an east-west divide that transcends the Border issue?
If we have coalition government in the 26 Counties and cross-party government in the Six Counties, why would Fianna Fáil not get into the kitchen and give our political leadership and experience to the fledgling Assembly of the North?
Why would we not get directly involved in providing the solutions to the problems which effect people, not just in the Border counties but across the island.
The constraints of the past should no longer hinder us. There is a new dispensation in the North, the structures for new politics are now in place. I believe we should embrace these structures and serve the north as we have served south. Let us work politics, not play politics.
Fianna Fáil has the track record of walking the walk rather than talking the talk, something that is badly needed at this point in time on our island. This is not about wrapping the green flag around us, this is about jobs and services and ensuring that the young people born on this island today can stay and can prosper here.
It is also about countering sectarianism and mistrust with its most potent cure: prosperity.
Fianna Fáil brought militant nationalism to accept the principle of consent. We led the campaign within nationalism for the Good Friday agreement. We will not destabilise that agreement. We will not move from the vision of a shared future between nationalists and unionists which lies at its core.
And, in terms of becoming MPs? Well, the Oireachtas public relations and Fás have both had me classified as an MP in my 11 years in the Dáil. I have not received my Westminster cheque yet! But are we trying to resolve the problems of Britain or striving towards sensible, all-island economic and social integration? Surely the latter, which has much, now, of that potential vested in devolution.
Cecilia Keaveney was Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal North West from 1996 to 2007 and is now a member of the Seanad.
No Robin WilsonWhen Dermot Ahern wrote last month that, with the northern executive re-established, "we are looking at the option of Fianna Fáil becoming an all-Ireland, 32-county party", the effect could only have been polarising.
The move was grudgingly welcomed by Martin Ferris, member of the IRA army council for much of the Troubles, as following Sinn Féin's lead - implying as it did that that party had been right to agree with Protestant bigots that the Assembly established by the Belfast Agreement was only an ante-room to an eventual united Ireland.
Indeed, echoing SF's goal that a 32-county state be celebrated by the centenary of the 1916 Rising, Bertie Ahern said next day: "we are conscious that ultimately 2016 moves upon us . . . we want to move with our northern friends: nationalists, republicans, unionists, loyalists, to make this a better island, and Fianna Fáil as a republican party, the biggest republican party, wants to be at the forefront of doing that in the years ahead." Quite how "unionists" and "loyalists" would remain friends in the "united Ireland", or how they would subscribe to it given their ideology of Protestant communalism rather than secular individualism, the Taoiseach did not elaborate. The unintended outcome could only be further mental repartition in the North - allied to the current official tally of 46 "peace walls" - with Catholic Ireland on one side, the northeastern Protestant rump on the other.
As sure as night follows day, the Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey egregiously suggested the Taoiseach had thrown a hand grenade into northern politics. He said this would "fuel demands from unionists to seek further links with mainland parties as a counterbalance".
In Ireland in 2007, the idea of an independent state is as meaningless as a "united kingdom". EU membership since 1973, globalising trends, devolution in the UK and mass inward migration of "non-nationals" all make a nonsense of the old constitutional argument about "national sovereignty" to which there was (tragically) no alternative at the time of partition.
Like generals fighting the last war, the northern protagonists are still determined to have that argument. Even as they chuckled together on May 8th at Stormont (with not a scintilla of guilt about the protracted catalogue of death and injury over which they had presided), the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness couldn't help affirming to their respective supporters that (variously and incompatibly) the union was secure or a united Ireland was on the way. No wonder the smiles have since faded and "traditional" northern deadlock or inertia has resumed on key political issues.
But there is no sense in politicians who preside over a successful, post-nationalist state - indeed successful because post-nationalist - indulging them. Yet Bertie Ahern was entirely unclear as to whether he was speaking as the leader of a nationalist political party or the custodian of a democratic government. Dermot Ahern's position - simultaneously Minister for Foreign Affairs and TD for a border constituency - was similarly ambiguous.
The huge irony is that "republicanism" has so unconsciously regressed from its enlightenment roots that politicians notionally committed to "uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter in the common name of Irishman" could fail so comprehensively to distinguish acting as an impartial broker on the North from partisan promotion of the Catholic "side", with the mooted link-up to the SDLP.
And there is a moral here for that party. FF's intervention will likely not amount to much: most people in this State are now indifferent to the North and Messrs Ahern were cagey about whether FF would take part in elections.
What would the 32-county party's line have been on the Aer Lingus move to another part of the "national territory", for instance, given FF was in at least two minds already?
Today, the SDLP hangs by a thread. Its three MPs were all elected with the critical support of liberal and labourist Protestants. Extraordinarily, the one most dependent on that support, Alasdair MacDonnell, ensured South Belfast would revert to DUP control next time by instantly embracing the FF advance - anathema to progressive Protestants, for whom (funnily enough) the party epitomises corruption and cronyism.
In that sense, while any FF move northwards would be posture politics, it could be associated with the demise of the once great organisation, previously known as the SDLP, yet now apparently nothing but a pale echo of the very ineffectual Nationalist Party, which in its younger, radical days it replaced.
Robin Wilson is a former editor of Fortnight magazine, co-founder of the Opsahl Commission and former director of Democratic Dialogue
Online: join the debate @ www.ireland.com/head2head
Last week, Prof Morgan Kelly and Austin Hughes debated the question Are we heading for a property crash? Here is an edited selection of your comments:
I feel we are in for a landing all right. How soft or hard it is will depend on the size of your mortgage. Some will splat, some will bounce.
Michael Guckain, Ireland
There's certainly a big fall under way. The only question is whether or not it is big enough to be called a crash. The most recent data show that Dublin house prices were down by 7 per cent from their peak in real terms in July. The rate of fall was increasing - real prices fell by 2.1 per cent between June and July. There's room for a further fall of 14 per cent before prices come back into line with their 2004 relationship with earnings. Austin Hughes is marvellously unconvincing in the case he makes against a property crash. The foundation of his argument - that interest rate increases are the "key driver of the current slowdown" - is implausible. There are at least two other major factors at play. First, a sharp decline in affordability since 2004, even when interest rates are discounted. Second, there has been a sharp decline in confidence.
Buyers' fear of future price increases has been replaced by the fear that prices will fall further after they buy.
Amergin, Ireland
No one can deny that there is a slump in the Irish housing market but it is an overstatement to suggest that we are experiencing the inaugural symptoms of a property crash. Ireland has savoured a boom in house prices in the last few decades and the levelling-off of these prices to a more natural figure does not imply a major property collapse.
Iain McGurgan, Ireland
Morgan Kelly tells it as it will come to pass. Austin Hughes has to be a lot more measured with his comments as he is part of the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economy. Low interest rates and questionable lending practices for property purchases caused the speculative asset bubble. The huge levels of debt created, plus the compound interest due, will have to be repaid, forgone, or inflated out of existence. The last option is probable. The FIRE economy spawned "virtual wealth" by creating debt, then used innovative financial engineering practices to issue "financial paper" to disguise the true nature of this debt. Now that the "collateral" behind this "financial paper" is being exposed as debt, rather than a tradeable capital asset, lending practices have had to return to reality and this is the prime cause of the collapse of the property asset bubble. Most would-be purchasers cannot obtain a sufficient mortgage; sales of properties stall and prices decline. Financial practices in the RE part of the FIRE economy have been abnormal and the property asset deflation may be sharp and brutal.
Brian P Woods, Ireland
On balance, I have to agree with Prof Morgan Kelly. We appear to have the hallmarks of an economy sailing into the "perfect economic storm". The IMF and OECD are revising down 2008 world growth forecasts (in the IMF case to less than 2 per cent). In the US (our biggest trading partner), the chances of a housing-led recession in 2008 have been pegged at between 30-50 per cent by Alan Greenspan. Domestically, our economy is clearly weakening, spearheaded by an effective collapse of the residential property market.
Patrick, Ireland
No chance. Ordinary folk would be able to buy a home thereby cutting the landlords out of the loop. Unlike the health chaos, the Government will bring forward some imaginative solution to maintain out-of-reach house prices and excessive profits for the "dig-out" friends.
Jim O'Sullivan, Ireland
Imagine earning €100,000 - you can borrow €450,000, not even enough for a one-bed apartment in South Dublin. Prices will absolutely crash until historic norms return.
David, Ireland
