THIS coalition is going to die peacefully in its bed, of advanced old age, surrounded by its grieving friends, advisers and programme managers. Any lingering doubts about this will have been assuaged by last week's events.
Forgive me if I seem to be hazy about what happened over this letter written by someone or other to Fergus Finlay. I just couldn't be bothered finding out what was going on. I scanned a couple of headlines, speed read a paragraph or two of the odd report, and turned off the radio or television as soon as I heard someone say "QMP".
One or two people I bumped into brought up the subject to ask me what I thought and if we were going to have an election. I replied that I didn't think anything at all, and, no, we were not going to have an election.
"Fianna Fail to raise awarding of contract in Dail next week", said the headline in Thursday's Irish Times. I'm getting tired of explaining to Fianna Failers that there is no point in trying to apply the same logic to situations involving other parties as other parties apply in situations involving Fianna Fail.
There were only a handful of questions you needed to ask to ascertain if this was going to lead to an unscheduled general election. One, is Fergus Finlay a member of Fianna Fail? No. Two, is Ruairi Quinn or anyone belonging to him a member of Fianna Fail? Again, no. Three, is Dick Spring now, or has he ever been, a member of Fianna Fail? There is no evidence of it. QED. It is quite clear that this matter should go no further, and that it is ludicrous to talk about it bringing down the Government.
You may think I'm being ironic. Not in the least. Nor am I being cynical about the moral relativism of this coalition. What I'm talking about is absolute political reality. This is why I wasn't in the least interested in following this latest "scandal". It had no meaning, other than as a brief schmozzle on the political dancefloor.
In the past year we've had several situations which, purely on their objective circumstances, might have amounted to election issues. If the same things had happened to Fianna Fail in government as happened to Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left, there wouldn't have been an envelope left in Leinster House by teatime of day one. But politics has nothing to do with objective circumstances, and everything to do with the relationship between motivation and perception.
THIS WEEK, I noticed that, with the exception of Fianna Fail members or supporters, nobody was in the slightest bit interested in getting caught up in the story. People tended to say things like "I'm bored with the whole thing". If the same things had happened to Fianna Fail, everyone would have been foaming at the mouth. This was not simple hypocrisy or cynicism, but an intuitive response to the true implications of events. In other words, if the public perception is that a government will not be brought down, then it is guaranteed to stay in office, because the political forces which create instability "conscience", "ethics" and "integrity" will never be unleashed. And since there is now a clear relationship between the political make up of a given government and the public perception as to whether that government is likely to fall prematurely, the make up of the government decides in advance the consequences of any controversies that may arise. Only coalition governments which include Fianna Fail are inherently unstable.
The confidence arising from this unwritten fundamental law could be observed in Fergus Finlay's response to last week's revelations. Mr Finlay told the Irish Times that the accusations were "without foundation - good, bad or indifferent". This, in case you missed it, was a joke, a parody of Albert Reynolds's way of responding to accusations. It could only have been said by someone who not only has done nothing wrong, but has no sense of guilt about anything. It suggested a man who couldn't even begin to think that anyone would even suggest Labour Party impropriety. Moreover, it was the statement of a man who knows his responses will be accepted at face value.
The slow burning media response was interesting. The story got a bigger splash on Thursday than on Wednesday, although nothing new had happened in the meantime. This is because the media immediately reacted on the basis that the story had no meaning, but then began to feel guilt pangs in case they might not be seen to be objective. Thus, Thursday's finger wagging.
It used to be a cliche that Fianna Fail looked after its own. But now the very thought that a company partly owned by the brother of a Fianna Fail minister might be considered for a public contract would be enough to bring any Fianna Fail Taoiseach 10 his knees to pray for sound political judgment.
AS A RESULT of the original sin of GUBU, Fianna Fail is now firmly imprisoned by existential guilt. When the man in the TV ad demands to know,
"Who touched my Carlsberg?" the entire Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party calls the leader to say, "I swear to God, Bertie, I never left the house". But Labour is completely free of existential guilt. "Absolute bilge," it declares, as though the idea that a Labour member might touch anyone's Carlsberg is just beyond belief. And of course, it is.
The Labour Party knows that the public will immediately understand that if a relative of a Labour minister is given a major public contract by the government, it could only be because that person was the most deserving of the candidates in a free and open competition. Mr Finlay was appealing to a public mind which knows the Labour Party is incapable of wrong, and that anything which looks dodgy is bound to have a perfectly reasonable explanation.
This is not sarcasm, but objective truth. I caught a glimpse of Dermot Ahern on Prime Time or some such trying to brew up a storm. He must know that none of this cuts any ice with a public to which Fianna Fail and guilt are synonymous. There is only one way in which the party might possibly break through to public sympathy in matters like this. The next time a "scandal" develops in the coalition, Fianna Fail politicians should say simply that they accept fully that no member of a government party is capable of any wrongdoing. They should say without irony or cynicism that only Fianna Fail politicians are capable of doing such things, and that it would be ludicrous to attempt to challenge the public perception in this regard by calling for elections or confidence votes. This is the only way, I believe, that Fianna Fail could force the public to confront its own perceptions in this regard.
I have no axe to grind on behalf of Fianna Fail (Isn't it funny that, whenever you say anything that might be construed "sympathetic" to Fianna Fail, you always have to say that you have no axe to grind?) All I seek to do is point out the strange ways in which this allegedly rational, adult society behaves in its political affairs - without, it seems, the slightest awareness of the peculiarities of its behaviour.