INSIDE POLITICS:AS THE Dáil goes into recess for the shortest summer break in living memory, Enda Kenny can look back on a remarkably successful first few months in office.
He crowned that success in the past week by delivering a Dáil speech on church-State relations that encapsulated the pent-up fury of ordinary Irish Catholics at the appalling things that were swept under the carpet.
That was followed on Thursday with a deal at an EU summit in Brussels that delivered a significant cut in Ireland’s interest rate bill on its bailout package that he had pledged to achieve during the general election campaign.
The icing on the cake was the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll which showed Kenny winning his highest satisfaction rating as party leader since he took over a shattered Fine Gael nine years ago. That rating was achieved despite the Roscommon hospital controversy and before the events of recent days had impacted on public opinion.
The Taoiseach is now in a really strong position to ensure that the tough decisions required to keep the public finances firmly on the road to recovery are taken in the autumn. He has enough political capital in the bank to face down any internal opposition in Government and to weather the inevitable public storms ahead.
It has become a bit of a truism to suggest that Kenny is the proverbial “lucky general”. While there is certainly some basis to that, it is also the case that people make their own luck. Kenny only benefited from lucky breaks because he had the strength of character and the self-belief to keep going when almost every political pundit wrote him off and nearly half of his own parliamentary party lost confidence in his leadership.
He has clearly grown in confidence since Fine Gael’s historic election breakthrough and has managed to build up a rapport with the public. Part of that can be attributed to his sure-footed performance in the Dáil which has surprised political opponents and the media.
More important has been his ability to convey a sense of optimism at a time when the country is on its knees. His positive attitude has come as a welcome relief to an electorate which has been subjected to an unremitting diet of bad news and gloomy economic forecasts for more than two years.
Voters have been indulgent enough to allow Kenny to backtrack on some of his election promises without suffering any political damage. The clear message is the electorate understands the scale of the economic crisis and wants the Government to tackle it at national level rather than getting bogged down on local issues like Roscommon hospital, whatever promises were or were not made in the heat of the campaign.
The easing of the terms on the EU-IMF bailout is a reward for the strenuous efforts already made to get the budget deficit under control, and the lower interest payments will certainly be a help in enabling the country to cope with its burden of debt.
It would be a mistake to believe, however, that the deal is some magic wand that can wave the debt burden away. It is going to take a long, hard slog over the next couple of years to get the public finances in order, and good luck as well as good management will be required to get through the crisis.
The essential requirement is that economic growth resumes. If that happens the debt to GDP ratio could improve quickly and that would bring confidence back into the economy. In the late 1980s a virtuous cycle of spending cuts and economic growth quickly shrank a debt burden that was even bigger than today’s, and the country moved from massive unemployment to near full employment in a few years. With luck the same self-sustaining cycle can be repeated.
One of the heartening aspects of the Irish Timespoll from the Government's point of view is that the electorate appears to be under no illusions about the need for tough decisions to be made, and is broadly in agreement with the thrust of the approach being taken to deal with the deficit.
For instance, there is strong support for the strategy of cutting the deficit by reducing public spending rather than increasing taxes. Of course that attitude will be tested when individual cuts are announced but the poll shows the electorate has a more mature understanding of what needs to be done than it is often given credit for.
Interestingly, voters differ from the Government in believing that further pay cuts across the public service are a better alternative to redundancies. In a country whose biggest problem is job creation it seems that the electorate is far more willing to put the common good ahead of vested interests than politicians might believe.
The problem about Irish politics, and its media coverage, is that so much debate is driven by small and vocal interest groups whose claims run counter to the national interest. The Irish Times poll indicates there is a greater willingness among voters than politicians realise to see the bigger picture.
This also applies to Ireland’s role in the EU. Despite all the anti-EU rhetoric that has emerged since the bailout there is still a majority of three to one for the view that it is better to be part of the EU than not.
With the breathing space created by the easing of the bailout terms the country now has an opportunity to make real strides in cutting the budget deficit.
If Kenny can use his authority to ensure the right decisions are made over the next six months, the country may be able to turn the corner quicker than anybody expected only a short few months ago.