Sometimes a general election becomes unavoidable

QUITE how Fianna Fail has appeared to snatch defeat from victory on the water charges issue is a sight to behold.

The possibility, indeed probability, now exists that this week the water committee will split 10-10 on its contentious report, which will then fall, that is, it may not come before the Dail at all for debate and execution by way of legislation to kill off this most toxic of issues.

On a weekend last May when agreement was reached between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail to allow the formation of this minority Government, I said the water charges issue would come back to haunt them. So it has turned out.

Subsequent to that, I warned on two or three occasions the water charges still had the potential to collapse the Government and lead to another election. Neither party wants an election on the issue, but sometimes events take on a life of their own. This is one such occasion, although calmer heads may still prevail.

That said, one thing is certain this weekend: the tide has gone out on ‘new politics’, and on this minority administration.

Politics is the art of compromise. For compromise, read fudge. Political fudge gets a bad rap, but, in fact, it is the essence of politics. The Good Friday Agreement, for example, is the best example of political fudge in our lifetime.

Events last week conclusively proved that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are unwilling, or incapable, of making new politics work. In this regard, I believe Fine Gael is more to be faulted. That said, the political system, and much of the media, here militates also against consensus politics.

However, it should not have been beyond both parties to finally put the wretched water charges issue to bed. Whether they do, or not, however, the tide has now gone out on new politics, and it is Fianna Fail which has been left to look naked in the backwash detritus. The party lies exposed, in bed with Sinn Fein on one side and the far Left on the other — not where it needs to be to take the next step towards complete rehabilitation, back into favour with staid old middle-class respectability.

In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that these latest twists on the water charges issue may yet turn out to be a watershed moment in terms of the next election. Here’s how…

THE Central Bank last week described the economic recovery as a “Phoenix miracle” to do with strong growth driven by growing income and business investment without increasing debt.

When a sober Central Bank economist so refers to the economy, you can take it the recovery is real notwithstanding external threats. As I write this, through the window, there are six cranes in the skyline. Somebody, somewhere has counted them. There are said to be 70 in all.

Yes, others elsewhere are not doing so well, but those numbers are falling too as employment and pay levels increase.

Yes, Brexit is also on the horizon. But here is a fact: the recovery that the Fine Gael/Labour government had bet the house on has arrived — a year too late for them. But if Fine Gael ran an election campaign now on a slogan ‘Let’s keep the recovery going’, it might just win.

What of Labour? Joan Burton’s former adviser, Ed Brophy last week posted a not too subtle tweet reminder of that party’s advertisement in the last election, first published here, of the happy couple, Micheal Martin and Gerry Adams (‘This is one marriage we should say No to this year’) featuring wedding guests Richard Boyd Barrett, Paul Murphy, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. If the election had come last week that ad would have had a resonance, notwithstanding the fact that Micheal Martin, more than any other politician in the Dail, remains absolutely opposed to government with Sinn Fein. A majority of his parliamentary party has no such compunction, however. And there is trouble ahead on that front too, for Fianna Fail.

BY the by, the Labour ad was the brainchild of Bloom Advertising, a director of whom, David Quinn (not that David Quinn) is the husband of Carol Hunt, formerly of this parish, now media adviser to Shane Ross.

Bloom was also responsible for the notorious, if successful at the time, Labour Tesco ad.

I am given to understand that Labour has since ended what was a productive relationship with Bloom. Go figure…

THAT brings us back not so neatly to a report in this newspaper last weekend, which revealed how Fianna Fail is contorting on the issue of what to do about the Garda Commissioner. The bottom line, as with water charges, is that Micheal Martin does not want an election. Yet.

Fianna Fail fears that should the Garda Commissioner be forced to resign or, ahem, retire, then the Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald will be next in the firing line, thereby threatening the ‘confidence and supply’ agreement underpinning the Government.

Since the weekend, Fianna Fail’s front bench (or elements of it) has tried to harden the party’s position. There is talk of strengthening legislation around various Garda watchdog bodies, of motions of no confidence in the Garda hierarchy (but not specifically in Noirin O’Sullivan), of dickying around with some motion or other with Labour —all partly contrived to get Fianna Fail off the hook upon which the party has impaled itself, by seeking to avoid an election at all costs. Fianna Fail either has confidence in the Garda Commissioner or it has not. The party has run out of room to manoeuvre. The tide has gone out on new politics. The further it goes out, the more Fianna Fail will be exposed, the more ‘confidence and supply’ looks like what it is said to be — a fig leaf at least partly contrived to allow Fianna Fail time and space to rebuild and return to power.

Sometimes an election becomes unavoidable and this weekend we are closer than ever to that point. The manner in which Fine Gael is behaving betrays its awareness of this more than Fianna Fail.

The problem for Fianna Fail now is that the water charges debacle risks setting to nought its attempts to rebuild where it needs to rebuild — with the middle classes, who will politely shun even the appearance of a shotgun wedding of the kind featured in the Labour illustration accompanying this column.

Here is another question: was Fianna Fail really inspired to fall upon the zeitgeist of ‘fairness’ in the last election — or was it just lucky, not least that the recovery had not by then arrived, and also that it was up against such hapless eejits who continue to surround the soon-to-depart Enda Kenny, to be formally replaced by one of Fine Gael’s two other leaders, both a generation fresher than Micheal Martin?

WHAT to do? Last weekend — and you can take this to the bank — Fianna Fail was agreeable to individual water meters at construction stage in newly built houses, although opposed to State-sponsored individual metering. It was also supportive of bulk metering in apartment blocks.

Whatever happened since then, Fianna Fail performed a volte- face. I suspect this occurred because Fine Gael gambled that Fianna Fail did not want an election on the water issue and began to unpick other elements of the eventual dog’s dinner of a report produced by the committee.

Here is what Fianna Fail was up against: if the party had not performed a volte-face, it was possible no report at all would have been produced — not even one that would have secured majority support; although even that level of support is now also threatened, wilfully snared up as the report will be by Fine Gael in a legal quagmire this week.

In the absence of a unanimous report last week, a majority report was preferable to Fianna Fail. The problem is that its volteface has put the party into bed with Sinn Fein and the far Left.

NOW another compromise will be required if an election is to be avoided. But how should it be executed?

Barry Cowen is not to be entirely blamed. He was absolutely correct to highlight a real complication behind the scenes (also referred to here last week). The problem, he said, is that Fine Gael has three leaders. One of those — Simon Coveney — was prepared to accept the report as negotiated up to last weekend with Cowen. The deal guaranteed that the average water use threshold would be applied per person as opposed to per household, with Fianna Fail, in return, to raise no objection to continued metering.

As also referred to here last week, another FG leader — Leo Varadkar — is suspected to have stuck his oar in behind the scenes, creating an outcome which would have (as it has turned out) put Simon Coveney on a sticky wicket.

Now word reaches us that Varadkar also addressed the Fine Gael parliamentary party the week before last on the water committee deliberations. His intervention is said to have stiffened the spines of a few Fine Gael TDs, who did not want to be on the wrong side of one of their leaders, especially the one still favourite to be sole party leader.

Fine Gael water committee members then went in on Tuesday and began to unpick what had already been agreed, or was thought to have been agreed between Coveney and Cowen.

To avoid an election, Fianna Fail may now, or in the Dail, have to revert to its original position on metering, and also arrive at a legally acceptable formula of words with Fine Gael on ‘excessive usage’ versus ‘wilful wastage’, but Fine Gael will also have to agree that average water use be applied per person and not household.

This will mean Fianna Fail breaking with Sinn Fein/far Left, which should be a minor discomfort, but at least the report and legislation will be passed and, ultimately, water charges will end, refunds paid and a referendum agreed on State ownership of Irish Water.

Then it is on to what to do about the Garda Commissioner, otherwise known as out of the frying pan and into the fire.