‘The gung-ho merchants in Fine Gael are disappointed Sinn Féin backed down’

BE under no illusion: we are in the countdown to an impending general election. The political shadowboxing that took place last week is a flavour of what’s to come over the next few months: parties and individuals jockeying for position. Elements of Fine Gael, obviously buoyed by recent poll indications, were talking up the possibility of an election.

And then we had Mary Lou McDonald, the new Sinn Féin leader, clearly feeling that she has broken free from the shackles of their dark past, who was sending out a clear signal to the two main parties that she and party were ready to do business. The least gung-ho of all were Fianna Fáil, who, given their becalmed position in the polls, do not feel that a quick election would be in their party interests.

FROM now until election day, the parties will be assessing the opportunities to prompt an election without, at the same time, being blamed for causing it.

The recent threat by Sinn Féin to table a motion of no-confidence in Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is a case in point. If they pushed it to a vote, they knew that they had Fianna Fáil over a barrel. One way or the other, Fianna Fáil would be the loser. If they voted in support of the Sinn Féin motion, this would have precipitated a general election, and Fianna Fáil would have been blamed. If they chose to abstain, they, yet again, could be accused by the rest of the Opposition of shoring up the Minister and the Government generally.

As it happened, Sinn Féin’s bluff was called. They announced last weekend that they would not be tabling the motion of no confidence in Mr Murphy, bringing this round of election baiting to an end.

By not pushing the motion, Sinn Féin are open to the accusation that they must have confidence in the Minister. I’m wondering if this change of heart by Sinn Féin is something to do with the gathering rapport between Sinn Féin and Fine Gael.

Readers will remember that Sinn Féin recently got Fine Gael out of a political hole by being the only opposition grouping supporting Shane Ross’s Judicial Appointments Bill. It will be interesting to see if this relationship blossoms over the next few months. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar may be casting his net wider for alternative suitors for a further ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement after the next election.

Another political straw in the wind is the ‘talking down’ of the upcoming Budget by Government spokespersons. They have already been out declaring that they will not make the ‘mistakes of the past’. I would suggest that this is not so easy in the circumstances in which they currently find themselves. With almost full employment, and with suggestions that the economy will have 90,000 vacancies to fill in the next two years, there will be huge pressure on them to loosen the strings on the purse.

Between 2004 and 2007, the government of which I was a member was faced with massive pressure in this regard. After the accession of ten new countries into the European Union in May 2004, our population over the following three years increased by more than 250,000, with people coming mainly from new member states like Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. In living memory, no country had received such a rise in population in such a short space of time.

This, in turn, quickly put huge pressure on all our public and social services. Our schools, hospitals, housing, roads and other public infrastructure became inadequate, literally, overnight. This meant that we found it necessary to respond to this pressure by dramatically increasing public expenditure.

A case in point was the rapid building of new motorway infrastructure in those years. The current Government are beginning to be put under this type of pressure though probably not as dramatic in its scale.

As usual in summer, we hear speeches from the Finance Minister and others in Government stating they will not be splurging the Budget surplus. We’ve already heard some excess corporation tax will go into a ‘rainy day fund’.

And yet, again, readers should not be fooled by this tough talking. With an impending election, and especially with ever-increasing demands from interest groups on the Exchequer purse, the Government will be canny enough to ‘speak out of both sides of its mouth’. In other words, it will be able to show a cautionary approach to fiscal prudence while at the same time easing the foot off the pedal on politically beneficial public spending.

This is yet another reason why Fine Gael would love to cut and run to the polls in the next couple of months especially after a reasonably generous Budget.

But they cannot be seen to precipitate an election for party political reasons. I’d say a few of the gung-ho merchants in Fine Gael were somewhat disappointed that Sinn Féin withdrew its confidence motion in the Minister. They would have been able to pull the plug and blame others.

There will be many in Fine Gael saying the longer this Government goes on the more likely the heady heights which they find themselves in in the polls will slip.

It will be an interesting few months in the run up to – and just after – October’s Budget. As always, the voters will see through the fog created by political parties by penalising those who are seen to have precipitated an election for party political reasons.

The political shadowboxing that has taken place is a taste of things to come as parties jockey for position