ANALYSIS:Fine Gael is in upbeat mood but needs a general election soon if it is to cash in on its current popularity, writes DEAGLÁN DE BRÉADÚN
PARTY CONFERENCES are hothouse affairs. You spend two or three days in the company of hundreds of people who are all singing from the same hymn-sheet.
And they all have a common opponent who, of course, is without a single redeeming feature.
There is a danger of contracting "Stockholm Syndrome" in such a situation.
This phenomenon acquired its name in 1973 when a group of bank officials were taken hostage in the Swedish capital and ended-up adopting the world-view of their captors as a result of spending five days in close physical and emotional proximity to them.
The Fine Gael world-view is that Fianna Fáil is grossly mismanaging the economy and should be removed from office as soon as possible.
Virtually everything the Government does is wrong and the public is just itching for a general election so they can turf out the Soldiers of Destiny and put Enda Kenny and his team into government.
The counter-argument is that the Fianna Fáil-led coalition has to deal with an unexpected and unpredictable economic crisis. It has taken steps - with Fine Gael support - to prop-up the banking system and further measures are being considered. It introduced an austerity budget which sought to recoup the shortfall in public funds through a range of cutbacks and impositions such as the income levy.
Nobody doubts that Fine Gael in government would also seek to take a tough line. Indeed the party has made this a selling-point with the public. The key political message in Kenny's conference speech at the weekend in Wexford was the need, as he saw it, for suspension of the national pay agreement.
The leader's speech is always the high point of the programme and even the 1,200 seats provided were insufficient to cope with demand on Saturday night.
Party officials had the unfamiliar experience of accommodating the overflow as they listened to complaints from those who could not gain entrance to the proceedings.
There's no doubt that Fine Gael people's tails are up, and to say the mood in White's Hotel was upbeat is a gross understatement. The one phrase that kept coming to mind as jovial delegates milled about the foyer was, "preparing for power".
Poll after poll shows Fine Gael well ahead of its ancient enemy. Party activists believe that the Fianna Fáil troika of Cowen, Coughlan and Lenihan has demonstrated it is not "officer material" and that it is only a matter of time before they are driven from office by a vengeful electorate.
Reflecting that mood of confidence there was a good deal of wit and humour, with Phil Hogan from Kilkenny savouring the experience of addressing a crowd in the heartland of his own county's all-too-frequently vanquished hurling rivals. There were good-humoured exchanges between himself and Wexford-based MEP Avril Doyle arising out of the last European elections in 2004 when Doyle and Maireád McGuinness won two seats for the party in the Ireland East (Leinster) constituency and Hogan, as director of elections, was felt to be closer to the McGuinness camp.
Unless Cowen and Co decide to go to the country in the meantime, Fine Gael's next outing at the polls will be the local and European elections this coming June. As a result, much of the conference was devoted to showcasing the party's candidates.
Speakers from the floor in the various sessions were either sitting or aspiring councillors and their "questions" to the platform were fairly stilted confections, motivated less by a thirst for knowledge than a desire to raise the profile of the speaker, especially during that period on Saturday morning when the proceedings were shown on national television.
That was the official conference. The unofficial conference, in the coffee-dock and at the bar, was devoted to the issue of Enda Kenny's leadership and whether he is a liability or a boon to the party. Polling data would suggest he is less-popular than the organisation he leads but his senior colleagues were protesting their loyalty to the leader at the weekend and there wasn't the faintest whisper of a "heave".
The obvious alternative is finance spokesman Richard Bruton but he, too, praised the incumbent leader.
At times Bruton seems almost too nice to be in politics and, besides, conspiracies aren't his style.
The third most popular figure at the conference was Dr James Reilly who received an extremely warm reception. The Dublin North TD's feisty, "up-and-at-'em" approach clearly goes down well with the grassroots.
As we know from the Dáil chamber, sustained verbal interplay is not Enda Kenny's forte. The media were granted a "doorstep" in the hotel lobby on Saturday as delegates jostled about: sit-down, set-piece press conferences can be a dangerous proposition.
On the speaker's podium, the Fine Gael leader is no Barack Obama, but he delivers a script quite competently. The content was unmistakably right of centre. Siptu, the country's largest union, is already up in arms over Kenny's proposal to suspend the pay deal. There was a strong law-and-order message too, with Kenny's call for 25-year mandatory sentences for murder: a proposal that might need some fine-tuning before reaching the statute book.
The fate of Enda Kenny and Fine Gael depends largely on when the next general election takes place. The sooner the better from the Opposition's point of view but it would be naïve to expect the Government to oblige them.
Unless there is major political climate-change in the interim, Fine Gael should clean up in the local and European votes in June but, to put it in GAA terms, that's a little like winning the League in hurling or football: you don't necessarily go on to take the All-Ireland.
There's also the question of arithmetic. Even with a parcel of extra seats after the next general election, Fine Gael will almost certainly still need Labour support in the Dáil to get into power.
Overdoing the right-wing message could force Labour into the arms of a weakened but extremely grateful and conciliatory Fianna Fáil which would be prepared to take on considerable quantities of Labour policy. But in answer to the basic question, can the Fine Gael team lead the next government? Yes they can.