Inside Politics:The 30th Dáil is shaping up to be a more interesting place than anybody could have imagined when Bertie Ahern won his third election in a row back in May, writes Stephen Collins.
One unexpected development has been a perceptible shift in the balance of power from an all too dominant executive to a parliament, which has traditionally been kept toothless.
In the past week the main Opposition party, Fine Gael, has managed to wrestle four committee chairs from the hands of a reluctant Government. That in itself might not signify an awful lot, apart from Ahern's preference for a quiet life, but there were some other straws in the wind which indicate that the current Dáil is capable of being more assertive than its immediate predecessors.
Last Tuesday, the Cabinet decided to reverse Government policy on the mandatory breath-testing of all those involved in road accidents. The obvious reason for the U-turn was that Fine Gael had a Private Members' motion listed for debate in the Dáil that evening calling for just such a measure, never mind the fact that it is being advocated by the Road Safety Authority.
The following day a response by the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, to a Dáil question on the Shannon issue from Limerick East TD Kieran O'Donnell reignited the whole Shannon controversy because it disclosed that the department had been in possession of information about the Aer Lingus plans six weeks earlier than had previously been thought.
The impact being made in the current Dáil session by Fine Gael reflects a basic fact of the election outcome that was relegated to one side because of Fianna Fáil's return to power. Fine Gael was the only party to gain seats in the election, and not only was the gain of 20 seats significant in terms of sheer numbers, the quality of the new intake has brought a lot of new talent into the parliamentary party.
In tandem with a revitalised Fine Gael, Eamon Gilmore has made a flying start as the new leader of the Labour Party. The change of leadership and Mr Gilmore's effective performances in the Dáil have helped the party come to terms with its failure to make any gains in the election, although it still needs to reflect on the reasons for that failure.
Of course putting up a good performance in Opposition is no substitute for winning power, as the more experienced Fine Gael and Labour TDs are keenly aware. Still, building an effective Opposition is a vital step on the road to getting into government. One of the reasons the election slipped away from the Fine Gael-Labour alliance in the last week of the election campaign was a perception that it did not have enough competent personnel to run the country.
If they prove capable of providing strong, coherent opposition in the Dáil, particularly at a time when the Government is looking increasingly less sure of itself, the Opposition parties will have put in one essential foundation block for the next election campaign. More importantly, by wresting more power for the Oireachtas from the Executive, they will have performed an important task in improving the quality of Irish democracy.
The dynamic between the Opposition parties has also changed since the election, with Fine Gael and Labour making it clear they will fight the next election as independent parties, even if they continue to co-operate in the Dáil. There was even some resentment in Labour over the past week at Fine Gael's hardball tactics in the committee negotiations that have given it four chairs to Labour's one.
Behind the tough tactics of Fine Gael was the dawning of the political reality since the election that if it is to get into power next time around the party can't afford to let anyone get in its way. Every other party in the Dáil will have options after the next election; Fine Gael has one - win more seats or fail again. Already the talk in the corridors of Leinster House is of a Fianna Fáil-Labour government next time around and a number of Labour TDs have been making no secret of the fact that they will be prepared to do the business to get their hands on power.
That leaves Fine Gael with a very clear idea of what it has to do. If everybody else is prepared to deal with Fianna Fáil, then Fine Gael will have to win another 10 seats next time around to put itself in the position of being able to lead an alternative coalition. Winning more than 60 seats is a very tall order for the party, but it is the only way to ensure that it can escape from eternal opposition.
Between 2002 and 2007 very few people gave Enda Kenny a chance of achieving his target of more than 50 seats, but he pulled it off. In a way, though, that was the easy part because it involved recovering the seats lost in 2002. Making the leap to the next level will require the kind of gains in party support that have not been seen since the 1980s. The fact that it is the only party in the Dáil that can break the stranglehold on power of Fianna Fáil could be its strongest card, but only if it can prove that it can provide better leadership of government than the incumbent.
Of crucial importance is another factor that has made the current Dáil a more exciting place than expected. That is the change in leadership in Fianna Fáil that is now certain to take place before the next election. Whoever succeeds Bertie Ahern will struggle to match his popularity. If he or she has to contend with an increasingly difficult economic situation and deteriorating public finances it will be all the more difficult. The stress and strain could make life in government in the years ahead much more difficult than it has been for any taoiseach since the early 1990s.
One way or another, with an unexpectedly reinvigorated Opposition and the prospect of a new taoiseach, the 30th Dáil promises to be a far more exciting ride than most TDs had a right to expect on the night of the election count.