INSIDE POLITICS: Since Christmas, three events have shaken the Irish political system, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
LAST MONDAY, George Lee’s shock resignation from the Dáil put the spotlight on Enda Kenny’s leadership and threw Fine Gael into turmoil. Four days later, Déirdre de Búrca has done the same for the Green Party and its leader, John Gormley. It’s another illustration of Harold Macmillan’s adage that “events” have a far more important bearing on the fate of political parties and their leaders than anything else.
Since Christmas, three events have shaken the Irish political system. The first and the most important, in both a personal and political sense, was the news about Brian Lenihan’s serious illness. Over the past 18 months, Lenihan has imposed himself as the dominant figure in the Irish political system. He stood shoulders above his colleagues in Government as he attempted to sort out the crises in banking and the public finances that threatened to overwhelm the country.
The announcement about Lenihan’s illness in January shocked the political system. When the Dáil resumed a few weeks ago, a perceptible change in the mood since before Christmas was evident, and a lot of the steam seemed to have gone out of party politics. That calmer mood helped promote the notion that the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Coalition was going to survive for the long haul, with an election unlikely for another two years or so.
That was the background of the second “event”, when George Lee dropped his bombshell on Monday. The assumption that an election was a long way off probably affected Lee’s decision. This in turn had an impact on the debate over the Fine Gael leadership. Last year, with an election a possibility at any time, Enda Kenny’s leadership was quite safe, in spite of his relatively poor personal rating in the polls. However, as an election receded over the horizon the opposite happened, and the leadership issue was pushed to the fore.
The nature of Lee’s departure served to protect Kenny from an immediate challenge. The mood in Fine Gael this week was that the party was not going to change leaders at Lee’s prompting. But there was intense discussion on whether Kenny could survive as leader if the party was going to be in Opposition for another two years. Some TDs certainly came to the conclusion that the leadership issue was back on the agenda and would have to be sorted out some time this year.
This uneasy state of affairs poses a real danger for Fine Gael. If the future of the leader is going to be up for debate after every opinion poll or major Dáil debate, the party will be in a permanent state of jitters and will certainly not be able to present itself as a coherent alternative government.
Then, yesterday, Green Party Senator Déirdre de Búrca reversed the dynamic with the second “event” of the week, and put the attention back on the Coalition.
Her scathing comments about party leader John Gormley raised uncomfortable questions for him. The Greens are saying much the same about de Búrca in private as Fine Gael TDs said about Lee – both are loners with egos out of all proportion to their political ability.
The Greens TDs and Senators, like their Fine Gael colleagues, rallied around their leader yesterday, but like their counterparts on the Opposition benches they will have to ask themselves some uncomfortable questions about where they see themselves going over the next year or two.
One conclusion is inescapable. If the Greens keep on as they are going, they will almost certainly be wiped out at the next election. How to avoid that fate must now be their first priority.
De Búrca was right in at least one aspect of her resignation letter. The Greens have sent a clear message to the political world that they do not have the stomach for the kind of serious confrontation with Fianna Fáil that could sink the Coalition.
By making this so clear, they have forfeited their strongest negotiating card in dealing with their Coalition partners. It will take more than an occasional nod in the direction of the Greens on issues such as animal rights to convince the public that the party is not in fact an extension of Fianna Fáil, as de Búrca says. What her resignation may do is get the party to focus on exit strategy from Coalition, sooner rather than later, following the Coalition’s third birthday in June of this year.
The fundamental problem the Greens have had to deal with is that they came to power at the worst possible time and have had to take responsibility for helping to clean up the mess Fianna Fáil created – and they predicted.
The importance of supporting the decisive action taken by Lenihan in dealing with the public finances is highlighted by the current crisis affecting Greece. Just 12 months ago we held the unenviable position, now held by Greece, of the sick man of the EU. Thankfully we clawed ourselves out in time, and for this the Greens deserve their share of the credit.
Lenihan’s solution to the banking crisis has not generated the same level of confidence as his approach to the public finances. The delay in getting Nama running has reawakened serious doubts on the strategy underpinning it. That could well prompt further political difficulties in the months ahead.
The only way the Greens have to survive as a viable entity is to pick their time of departure and the issue on which to go, well before the end of the Coalition’s five-year term. The party will have to fight the next election against Fianna Fáil, not as an apologist for it.
That will provide no guarantee of survival, but it might give them a fighting chance. The clear message from the past few weeks is that unexpected “events” to come are likely to have a greater impact on politics than even the best laid plans.