Four more years: tricks and treats for Coalition to last its actual lifetime
The Government has some work to do to get to 2025, writes Fionnán Sheahan
BUDGET 2021: the most forgettable in living memory. It will go down in the history books as the biggest giveaway in the history of the State.
However, four days later and there’s no great fallout from the measures. The pandemic has changed the economic and political rulebook.
The nearest there was to a backlash to the €18bn giveaway was Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe getting savaged by a dead sheep at a Fine Gael meeting. Former Government chief whip Seán Kyne, now ensconced in the Seanad, was among those to complain Donohoe was too stingy when there was a general election to be won. The critics seem to forget last February was a different world entirely.
The seemingly accidentprone Fianna Fáil-Fine GaelGreen Party Coalition has found it can get something right. After a calamitous first 100 days, the Coalition parties can build on the achievement of passing a fundamental structure of being in government. The enthusiasm shown by even the most cynical backbenchers towards the Budget shows a way to bind the parties together.
Suddenly, this administration looks like it can actually work and there’s no reason it can’t look to the ambition of passing four more Budgets.
Covid-19 and Brexit present obvious obstacles, but staying the course presents the opportunity for Michéal Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan to show a government can lead the country through a crisis period which was entirely not of its own making.
That’s a tempting offer to go back to the voters with in 2025.
It assumes the parties can be smart enough to see the political realities and have a few tricks and treats to navigate the storms.
OPINION POLL VOTES DON’T ACTUALLY COUNT
The Government will never last spitting time if the respective parties keep getting excited about the results of every poll that comes along.
Yes, we’re talking about Fianna Fáil activists, in particular. A poll putting the party in single digits isn’t good for morale but all the more reason to make the Coalition work to stave off a thereby inevitable drubbing. Thus far the poll chatter has resulted in speculation there wouldn’t be a government formed, that there would be another general election, that Fine Gael was heading for an overall majority, that Micheál Martin would be gone by Christmas and that the Green Party was doomed.
Fine Gael has begun to believe its own hype after the assured management of the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis. However, Varadkar’s clever metropolitans seem to forget they had long kicked out Enda Kenny’s culchies and were in sole charge for the general election debacle, when Blueshirts managed to record their second worst result ever off the back of a booming economy.
Go figure.
There’s no guarantee they’ll get it right the next time.
RELAX ON THE CONSTANT SUCCESSION PLANNING
It’s all plotted out Micheál is going to be replaced by Leo as Taoiseach in December 2022. Then Michael replaces Paschal as Finance Minister.
Micheál stands down as Fianna Fáil leader to be replaced by either Michael or Jim. And Paschal is waiting in the wings in case Leo gets bored and heads off to Europe.
Forget it. God only knows where positions and reputations will be at in two years’ time, if the Government even gets that far.
Martin can spend all his time trying to put a succession plan in place or just focus on doing the most with the time he has available to him.
The drama queens on the Fianna Fáil backbenches have been silenced once the Government actually got going.
THEY HAVEN’T GONE AWAY, YOU KNOW, BUT SINN FÉIN ARE ALSO UNDER SCRUTINY
Mary-Lou McDonald is firmly leading the leaders of the opposition and will continue to do so for the duration of this Dáil. However, with the responsibility comes the scrutiny. The Shinners had more flip flops than you’d find on the Copacabana beach this week between the Budget borrowing, the delay in lock
ing down Northern Ireland and going up levels of restrictions.
The contradictory answers and continually blaming either Dublin or London does become clear to voters. The continual ‘somebody should do something about it, but we’re not to going to be pinned down on what’ gets a tad convoluted. And Pearse Doherty only mentioning the word “Brexit” once in his Budget speech was quite the oversight for ‘An tUasal Feargach’. Sinn Féin isn’t going anywhere and would only benefit from an early election.
Taking decisions and implementing policies is the only way for the coalition triumvirate to remain ahead of the Sinn Féin populist game.
GET AN ACTION PLAN FOR SOMETHING AROUND THE WEAKEST LINKS
Where the previous government did monumentally fail, which cost them at the ballot box, was a lack of real delivery in the key areas of health and housing. Unlike health, where there was no progress to show, at least in housing there was a plan of sorts in place, but the delivery wasn’t fast enough.
Fianna Fáil now has control of these portfolios and can’t afford a repeat. With no shortage of money now being thrown at the problems, there’ll be little excuse for a lack of return.
Micheál Martin is said to be already getting impatient with the watery Stephen Donnelly at Fianna Fáil’s pre-Cabinet meetings, so will have to find a way to monitor genuine progress rather than watch the black hole just get bigger.
Darragh O’Brien’s ‘Action Man’ demeanour is all well and good, but his targets seem overly ambitious with even Varadkar pointing to a problem with delivery.
A Richard Bruton-style action plan, where outcomes are measured, wouldn’t go astray.