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Election 2024: Coalition parties turning on one another or a phoney war of words?

That old political chestnut the personalised briefing had been lurking for some time, but now it’s out and getting about

Fine Gael leader Simon Harris fields questions from farmers at the Irish Farm Centre in Dublin on Tuesday. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris fields questions from farmers at the Irish Farm Centre in Dublin on Tuesday. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
Jack Horgan-Jones's picture
Jack Horgan-Jones
Wed Nov 13 2024 - 06:00

One of the abiding questions that has stalked the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green Party Coalition since 2020 is how they would campaign against each other come election time, having governed together for so long.

Just a few days into the campaign, we have our answer: with great gusto.

All three parties have unshackled themselves, carving lumps out of each other with something verging on enjoyment at times, according to one seasoned political watcher.

Backbenchers picking on the Greens, in particular, has been a feature of this Government and there have of course been occasional blow-ups at Cabinet. Yet this has been a Government eager to emphasise its low-drama credentials at every hand’s turn.

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Not any more.

The personalised briefing had been lurking in the undergrowth for some time with Fine Gael, in particular, anxious to portray Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin as irritable and troubled by the pre-eminence of Simon Harris since his elevation to the Taoiseach’s office.

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The tensions were clear over the weekend, with Fianna Fáil targeting Fine Gael’s plan for an 11 per cent hospitality VAT rate as “regressive” and a “serious mistake”. As Fine Gael hit a patch of Michael O’Leary-related turbulence, Martin solemnly pronounced: “That would never happen at a Fianna Fáil meeting.” Fine Gael hit back, Helen McEntee filleting the Fianna Fáil manifesto, labelling it as “full of uncosted promises with little substance”.

Not to be outdone, the Greens got in on the act, claiming the bigger boys are trying to “marginalise” his party for being too “robust”, while Fine Gael targeted Fianna Fáil’s drugs policy.

The more eye-catching attacks of the campaign so far have been Government-on-Government, rather than between Coalition and Opposition. This is fuelled by a tension that has run through the last few years, something Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman admitted on Tuesday.

While foregrounding that the Coalition usually got there in the end, he said there were “often conflicts” behind the scenes and that given the different backgrounds of the three parties “there’s always going to be tensions”.

So, there is a well for the three parties to draw from when it comes to taking shots at each other, unencumbered by the obligation to hang together.

While there is a cathartic dimension to the frisson between Government parties, there is undoubtedly also a political expediency to it.

Jennifer Bray from the Irish Times political team looks at what success would look like for the parties of the left in GE24. Video: Enda O'Dowd

The two larger parties will be competing at close quarters for final seats up and down the country, so anything that allows their candidates to differentiate themselves from a rival will be useful — equally so at national level, where Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil must try to define themselves as politically distinct entities after governing together for almost five years.

The Greens’ entire campaign so far can be distilled down to the idea that only they can tame the bigger beasts of Irish politics on climate and other stuff too. And, of course, the more the media is focusing on their tensions, the less it is talking about the Opposition, which is a bonus. Privately, some seasoned Government operators admit: “It’s a fake war, really.”

It promises to persist for a while. Fianna Fáil sources were scornful of Green Party plans to change its Help to Buy scheme by introducing price caps on its use, depending on what part of the State a property is in. “It’s a halfway approach to abolishing the scheme,” said a senior party source after the Greens manifesto launch on Tuesday.

The fun can’t last though, senior sources admit, especially as the campaign proceeds.

Implicitly or explicitly, some calm will have to be brought to it all at the end — with the Coalition anxious that too deep a conflict could present an opportunity for Sinn Féin. “I don’t think you can see [Martin and Harris] tear each other apart in the last week,” confided one insider.