Three reasons why Fianna Fáil could be spooked into an election this year
YOU must remember the grubby, raincoatclad television detective Columbo and his parting question starting with: “Just one more thing...” Those of us who loved the series knew that this apparently innocent query would, before the episode ended, be central to nailing the smug culprit.
Don’t read too much into personalised connections here, we’re merely firing out a “just one more thing” type question to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
During the week he moved to calm the horses by suggesting that, all things being equal, his party would deliver the third of three budgets planned for in the firsttime-ever ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement put in place in May 2016.
More than that, the Fianna Fáil leader suggested that any prospect of another general election would drag into spring 2019.
This may be because his party would hang around to deliver the two pillar laws which underpin any budget, the finance bill and the social welfare bill.
So here’s our own Columbo-style puzzler: Why should Fianna Fáil help pass a social welfare bill early next year, on the eve of an election?
It takes no wild leap of imagination to envisage leftist TDs from Solidarity-People Before Profit putting down amendments to that legislation seeking marvellous things for welfare recipients. In the now established chain reaction, Sinn Féin would have to be giving it large in that department also.
So, what would be Fianna Fáil’s option: vote down these eve-ofelection S-PBP/SF amendments and ask disappointed voters to back them?
Cynics will say this would be a mini re-visiting of what it did before exiting the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition in January 2011. In an epic hair-shirt Budget, they repossessed the Widow Murphy’s wheelchair, and then asked the Widow Murphy, family, relatives, neighbours and friends to vote for them.
Fine Gael and Labour were grateful, on taking office on March 9, 2011, that the worst of the cutback heavy-lifting had been done for them. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party fought to survive politically.
Surely this is not political terrain Mr Martin wants to revisit? This is among a number of reasons Mr Martin’s troops are “spooked” by current events.
This all comes into sharper view as the Dáil comes back tomorrow for a slightly longer than usual run-in to the summer holidays in mid-July. It is a heavily charged term politically over which three dates loom large.
Date one is the May 25 abortion referendum, which will fill a huge amount of political space in the first half of term. All the parties have their internal divisions here.
But Fianna Fáil is riven and, even with a “free vote”, party leader Mr Martin, whose personal views are in a minority, will have big difficulties keeping things going smoothly. Health Minister Simon Harris is under the cosh on this issue.
Securing a “Yes” would be of some benefit to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his Government. They could portray themselves as resolving a 35-year bitter conflict.
But political history teaches us “morality referendums” do not cut much political ice in the medium to longer term. The only short-term advantage for both of the big parties is that this issue offers a kind of political ballast which keeps the spotlight off coalition tensions and a potential election.
Date two is the EU leaders’ summit on June 28 and 29 in Brussels that will update Brexit negotiations. Leo Varadkar and company have done well to date but provisional gains and kudos appear fragile. Realising this fragility, Fianna Fáil has become more strident on the issue in the past month.
The outer date for finalising of EU-UK ‘Withdrawal Agreement’ is next October’s EU leaders’ summit. But the big danger is that the Irish Border issue may not even be fixed by next October. The issue could actually drift into more detailed long-term negotiations on future EU-UK post-Brexit relations.
The longer this drift persists, without a Border fix, the bigger the danger to Ireland of becoming isolated and losing out. At last month’s summit, Mr Varadkar suggested his earlier deadline of June for a Border deal might slip into October.
Date three is the October Budget, the third of three agreed in the May 2016 confidence and supply deal. By now supply persists – but confidence is scarce. That means the next Budget details will be hard to agree.
It also means unexpected events/ rows will be harder to deal with throughout this term.
Ironically, the problem is Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has big money to spend for the first time in 10 years – up to €3.2bn – meaning inevitable rows about choices.
So, there you have three dates, and three potential reasons, why you cannot rule out a general election in 2018.
Supply continues but confidence is scarce. So, the next Budget will be hard to agree