Varadkar has golden opportunity to show leadership mettle and stand up to Sinn Féin
IWAS 29 years old and had just been elected to Dáil Éireann. A Budget vote was due around teatime. When it took place I was shocked. Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, whose government was unexpectedly defeated by one vote, announced on the spot that he would seek the dissolution of the Dáil. We were gone for our tea literally and metaphorically. We had been a little over seven months in office.
Fine Gael lost only two seats in that election but we lost office. Eight months later there was a third election and we returned to office for almost five years. My hands bled from shaking hands and carrying leaflets in the two elections held in a very cold February and a colder November. I was too young to know it but Mr FitzGerald was right, he could not go on with daily threats to the government.
Today, having contested a total of 15 elections, I am a little more seasoned. If I were Leo Varadkar, I would go quietly to my home parish of Inchicore and there, at the Oblate Grotto, say a quiet prayer of thanksgiving. Fianna Fáil is presenting him with the opportunity to show the country what leadership means. God knows it has been in short supply in current politics. This is not only the sort of opportunity that sorts the adults from the children, so to speak, it is also a golden opportunity to show the stark difference there is between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil when it comes to taking guff from Sinn Féin.
I would then walk the few hundred yards to Goldenbridge Cemetery, the last resting place of two proud nationalists and statesmen, WT and Liam Cosgrave, and there reflect on what it is that public interest, as distinct from public opinion, really demands.
I doubt that the temporary majority of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil actually represents public opinion in relation to the position of the Tánaiste, Frances Fitzgerald. Few people know what this pantomime is all about. The real problem is that so many people now expect only pantomime from our national parliament. Even officials who work in Leinster House have become embarrassed by what has now become the norm.
Nonetheless, the Taoiseach has no way of overriding them if Fianna Fáil persists in being a follower rather than a leader. So he should face up to them and either allow them to cross the floor and take power or try to secure a general election and face them on the hustings.
Fine Gael’s days in government are, in any event, numbered. It could try to survive by getting Ms Fitzgerald to take a hit, but that would only increase public cynicism about political opportunism. It would also simply put off the inevitable for a maximum of 18 months, and probably much less. If that happens Fine Gael will face the electorate at some point on terms chosen by the Opposition and it may well take a hammering. There are few times when the public interest and the party interest coincide. For Fine Gael, this is one of them.
To this day I do not know why Alan Shatter, a conscientious and able justice minister, was pushed from office. Two Garda commissioners have also departed. We have now lost to premature retirement the secretary general of the Department of Justice. Ms Fitzgerald’s “offence” appears to be that she saw an email about which she was required by law to not intervene, even if it had registered with her. She obeyed the law.
Sinn Féin, about whom all the aforementioned security officials of the State know much more damaging information than this email, wants another official decapitated so Fianna Fáil feels obliged to assist, for fear of missing out on the publicity. The tail is wagging the dog.
From Micheál Martin’s perspective this is a travesty because the new “responsible” Fianna Fáil had pulled itself up by its shoelaces and has been riding high in the opinion polls. A general election now, or a Fianna Fáil government dominated, one way or the other, by Sinn Féin, will be mostly about one issue: Are the people ready to hand over the institutions of the State to Sinn Féin dominance? If it allows this, Fianna Fáil will, sooner or later, pay a very high price. Why vote for Sinn Féin light when you can have the real thing?
It is not just fear of Sinn Féin gaining access to security and diplomatic information that will be the issue. It holds seven of the 18 Northern Ireland seats at Westminster at a time when there is a government there eight seats short of a majority. Yet it refuses to be involved with finding a solution to the Brexit issue. This demonstrates its lack of serious engagement with big picture politics. What prospects would there be for this State if the same people
are in a position of influence here at this crucial time for Brexit negotiations?
Mr Varadkar will never again get the opportunity he is now presented with to show his Cosgrave-like mettle, and FitzGerald-like skills.
His options are to become either leader of the Opposition, in which case, as a very young man, he will have time to prepare for a return to office at a future, and possibly at an early date. Alternatively, he could become Taoiseach again after an election in which Fine Gael would do well. It would do particularly well if it does what it has always done, stand up to Sinn Féin bullies and make them the issue that they are.
Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael have nothing to fear but fear itself. He is right to take a stand.