Colette Browne: Soldiers of destiny more akin to the roll-over party
THE Soldiers of Destiny like to think of themselves as the Republican party but latterly they are more akin to the Roll Over Party. Every supposed red-line issue, in Fianna Fáil’s phoney battle with Fine Gael, is invariably meekly diluted, with the party winning nothing more than egg on its face.
Most recently, the party’s alleged trenchant opposition to Transport Minister Shane Ross’s Judicial Appointments Bill has melted in the face of a stiffening of resolve on the Government benches.
Having previously stated the new body should have a legal, rather than lay, majority and be chaired by the sitting Chief Justice instead of a lay member, Fianna Fáil is now prepared to accept a lay majority and have a retired judge as chair.
Which begs the question, why did the party kick up such a stink about the Bill in the first instance if it is willing to compromise its position to such an extent so easily?
Previously, the party’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan alleged Mr Ross’s pet project was “a seriously flawed piece of legislation” and threatened to repeal it if Fianna Fáil was ever returned to office.
Given the Bill will be almost unchanged, if the party’s concessions are adopted, are we now to believe that the legislation is no longer “deeply flawed”? Was the party’s opposition to the Bill nothing more than theatrics?
Clearly, Fianna Fáil is suffering an identity crisis. Other than being the ‘Not Leo Varadkar’ party, what else does it stand for?
At the party’s ard fheis at the weekend, there was a lot of trenchant criticism of Mr Varadkar and his shiny new €5m spin machine. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin derided Mr Varadkar as an out-of-touch elite intent on dividing society into winners and losers.
Fine Gael, according to him, doesn’t care about the sick, the elderly, those looking for a home or people with disabilities. It’s only concern is looking after the better off. Those who “get up early in the morning”. In fact, the only reason we’re not all living in a dystopian Tory hellscape, with Fine Gael given carte blanche to fully embrace its deep-seated Thatcherite tendencies, is because Fianna Fáil have managed to reign them in.
However, the fact he was making this speech a few days after facilitating the Tory Terrors passing their Budget underscores the difficulty Mr Martin faces in keeping up this charade.
He’s already having problems keeping the story straight. In an interview with RTÉ’s ‘The Week in Politics’ on Sunday, Mr Martin made something of a Freudian slip.
“We’re only a year and a half in Government,” he protested, under sustained pressure to clarify the party’s approach to health and housing. While Mr Martin hurriedly corrected himself, the problem is the party’s convoluted position is as confused in the minds of many voters as it clearly is for Mr Martin. After all, if Fine Gael is a party of such uncaring bogeymen, then why is Fianna Fáil continuing to keep them on life-support in government?
And where were the policy announcements that would show people what Ireland under Fianna Fáil, as opposed to Fine Gael, would look like? How would it be different? Other than lots of vague assurances to look after everyone, and create a fairer society for all, there were no concrete policy proposals on how that could be achieved.
Instead, senior party figures had the gall to accuse Fine Gael of being obsessed with empty spin and cheap catchphrases – while spending the entire weekend engaging in just that. Marketing and bluster.
Speaking on RTÉ, Mr Martin said that “people want a choice, they want an alternative”, but he then failed to articulate what that alternative was.
What would Fianna Fáil do differently on health, on housing or on taxation policy that would materially differentiate itself from Fine Gael?
While Fianna Fáil is desperately trying to reinvent itself as a cuddly left-of-centre alternative to the callous elites in Fine Gael, it has certain credibility issues in that regard.
For a start, the roots of the housing crisis the party is now so eager to address lie in policy decisions that were made by Fianna Fáil governments. Tax cuts for developers that inflated the property market and led to ghost estates all over the country, the ability of developers to buy their way out of their social housing provision commitments, and the overreliance on private landlords to house social housing tenants.
IF Fianna Fáil wants the country to believe that the people who got us into this mess are the ones we should trust to get us out, it’s going to have to do more than huff and puff about Fine Gael’s rightwing tendencies.
Housing spokesman Barry Cowen recently announcing that his big idea was a tax cut for developers, in the form of a Vat reduction, isn’t going to butter any parsnips.
And, if Fianna Fáil truly believes that the response of Fine Gael to the housing crisis has been as abysmal as it says, then why is it continuing to prop them up in Government?
Mr Martin said Fine Gael was “not displaying a sense of urgency that crises in health and homelessness demands” and there “has to be delivery in relation to housing and health”.
Well, there’s one way to really hold Fine Gael to account for the abject failure to address the housing crisis. Collapse the Government. If Fianna Fáil would do a much better job, why not call an election now before any further damage is done, put their policies to the people, and see who wins?
The simple answer to that has nothing to do with the national interest and everything to do with narrow political party interest. Fianna Fáil’s reinvention as a caring party of the left – except its policy on abortion, which is to the right of most hardcore Tories – is not complete.
It is not yet strong enough in the polls to be reasonably confident that it would be returned to government as the biggest coalition partner.
Until that happens, all of the griping and moaning about Fine Gael is just that – empty rhetoric and meaningless political posturing. Maybe Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar have more in common then they think.
There’s one way to hold Fine Gael to account for the failure to address the housing crisis. Collapse the Government.