Sinn Fein accused of ‘sulking’ by Fianna Fail
The dramatis personae vying to be Taoiseach should brush up on their Shakespeare tragedies, writes Michael West
SINN Fein has been accused of “sulking” over its failure to form a Government, as the party was criticised for not responding to a letter from Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin.
Senior Fianna Fail TD Barry Cowen made the remarks as he claimed that the snub suits Sinn Fein’s narrative of giving “the impression they’re being left out”.
He also ramped up pressure on Fine Gael over Government formation talks which he said need to accelerate due to the threats posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has insisted his party is preparing for opposition and will only enter Government as a last resort.
But as he heads off to the United States for St Patrick’s Day festivities at the White House, another senior figure, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, has signalled wriggle room in Fine Gael’s stance.
Writing in the Sunday Independent, Mr Donohoe acknowledged that Fine Gael got a “clear message” from voters in the election.
But he makes an impassioned defence of the political centre, saying “this may be our last opportunity to save it”.
Since the election, Sinn Fein has repeatedly claimed its voters aren’t being respected by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s refusal to enter Government talks with the party.
Mary Lou McDonald’s party has so far failed to pull together a coalition of left-wing parties and Independents.
Mr Martin wrote to Ms McDonald two weeks ago, offering to meet to discuss why the two parties aren’t compatible in terms of forming a Government.
He has not yet received a response.
The pair clashed on their first day back in the Dail.
Mr Martin said he could not go into Government with Sinn Fein because of its “efforts to legitimise a murderous sectarian campaign” of the Provisional IRA.
Ms McDonald said she “did not care” what he thinks about her party.
Mr Martin’s attacks against Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail’s own manifesto were criticised by some TDs at a meeting of the parliamentary party last Thursday.
Fianna Fail sources have claimed Mr Martin’s standing in the party has been diminished since the election and that there has been rumblings about his continued leadership among the grassroots.
Mr Cowen said that Mr Martin’s continued leadership of the party is “not in question at this time”, adding that he has a mandate to negotiate a programme for Government.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar revealed last week that he, too, had written to Ms McDonald seeking to discuss policy and the deadlock surrounding Government formation.
Sinn Fein says she has responded to this letter.
Mr Cowen hit out at Ms McDonald’s failure to reply to Mr Martin.
He said: “It would appear Sinn Fein cannot build a functioning minority, never mind a majority,” and adding “its sulking is not credible” given that it did not respond to his party leader’s letter.
He claimed that the Sinn Fein manifesto was unachievable, despite its ambitions and the expectation it created with voters.
Mr Cowen said there hasn’t been scrutiny of whether they could abolish property tax, student fees, or the USC for workers earning up to €30,000 as promised.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Pearse Doherty responded by saying it was Ms McDonald who first wrote to Mr Martin. He said: “We will be in further contact.”
He added: “Sinn Fein said we would talk to everyone after the election and that remains our position.”
“It is Fianna Fail who have tried to exclude Sinn Fein from Government formation talks. Barry Cowen knows this,” Mr Doherty said.
He added that Sinn Fein has had “extensive discussions with other parties and Independents to form a Government for change. That is our objective.”
Mr Doherty said his party’s manifesto was fully costed.
He claimed Mr Cowen has not yet come to terms with what he described as Fianna Fail’s “dismal performance” in the election.
There were discussions between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael last week. Fine Gael ministers have since said it’s still their party’s intention to go into opposition.
Mr Cowen said a Dail majority is crucial if the next Government is to deal with the issues facing the country and the best path to achieving this is a deal between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Greens and Independents.
Cowen criticises party for not responding to Martin letter sent two weeks ago
WE are so used to telling ourselves that our political system is broken that we sometimes take for granted the parts of it that do function.
The delights of STV proportional representation are many, but one of the main pleasures is the enjoyment the voters get from the whole process. The trip to the local school, the volunteers, the tallies, the transfers, the results — all delivered smoothly and accurately in a remarkably efficient and transparent display of civic participation.
There were no cries of stuffed ballot boxes, no accusations of cheating or voter fraud, no stories of people being denied their right to vote. The gracious acceptance of the results by the losers and the reliability of, and trust in, the media for the days of the election and count showcase much that is the best of ourselves — and something we should not take for granted.
But what about those results?
As a playwright, I know no more about politics than anyone else, so the following observations should be taken more as notes on the dramatic potential of scenarios, and any resemblance to actual politicians is entirely coincidental.
As it stands, the political kingdom is how King Lear imagined his retirement before Cordelia opened her mouth: divided into three equal parties, the leaders all vying for the top job, all unable to get it.
The tragic hero in the current situation is Micheal Martin. As the leader of the largest party, Martin is the person on whom the greatest responsibility falls, but he is compromised in every direction. As the ghost underwriter of the Fine Gael administration, he is tainted by the failures of the last government, but with the success of Sinn Fein he is unable to present himself as the leader of the opposition.
A decent and honourable man, Martin has navigated the reefs of the health ministry and inherited a toxic, burntout party with hardly a stain on his reputation. His problem is that the very smoothness that allows him to avoid being tarnished by these things also means he has left very little stamp on them. His brand is a quiet, responsible acceptance of the way things are, which is difficult to sell as a manifesto for change.
In the normal run of things, these virtues would see him become Taoiseach, but now he stands before his own party of 37 TDs as a leader whose main achievement is to have helped Fine Gael’s Varadkar become the last Taoiseach and whose main policy is to prevent Mary Lou McDonald from becoming the next one. He is a kingmaker who wants to be king. In this respect, the leader he most resembles is Dick Spring of the Labour Party, whose 33 seats in 1992 gave Fianna Fail a chance to hold onto power and who first mooted the idea of the ‘rotating Taoiseach’. But Martin’s Fianna Fail doesn’t have a big brother it can do a deal with or even betray. The days of being the natural party of government are far behind.
Martin now runs the very real risk of being the first Fianna Fail party leader in history never to ascend the throne. He’s every incentive to make a deal, but his party is split over who they hate more.
Parliamentary democracy is a political machine for maintaining the status quo and for implementing gradual change. For almost a hundred years, the Dail has delivered governments led by either of the Big Two. In the terms of King Lear, the choice has always been between the Ugly Sisters, Goneril and Regan, who are deadly rivals, but who understand each other because at heart they want the same thing.
Enter Cordelia, stage-left, in the person of Mary Lou McDonald.
The financial crash of 2008 broke the political system and took away the identities as well as the reputations of the parties. The narratives of the political economy crashed with the bailout and we haven’t yet worked out what the new story is.
Fianna Fail, the republican party, gave us prosperity and independence, but it also destroyed the economy and presided over the end of our sovereignty. Fine Gael and Labour once lost a government over VAT on children’s shoes; in their 21st century version they gave us eye-watering austerity without accountability. The banks, like the church, have been scolded but basically left alone. Housing, apparently, is too hard to fix. We can’t build a hospital to save our lives.
Now that it’s happened, it’s no wonder Sinn Fein has marched into the void, but given its poor performance in the local and European elections it was the most unpredictable predictable event in Irish politics in decades.
If it’s the case that the 2020 election is the first proper election since the crash, then it’s equally the case that 2020 marks the first proper election for Sinn Fein without Gerry Adams.
Mary Lou McDonald’s authority has been imprinted on this last campaign. In addition to being a very impressive performer in the Dail over many years, she has shown herself to be a decisive leader. Her intervention in the case of Sinn Fein councillor Paddy Holohan, over remarks made on a podcast, was both swift and extreme.
McDonald was mocked for it at the time, but it turned out to be a watershed moment. Instead of being a story about Sinn Fein harbouring casual prejudice, it became a story about a strong leader who would stamp it out. McDonald couldn’t have done better to address the lingering concerns older votes may have harboured over voting for Sinn Fein if she tried.
It’s unlikely to be the last time she will have to act in a similarly ruthless fashion, but for now she is in a commanding and powerful position. Yet it’s worth remembering that in King Lear Cordelia doesn’t inherit the throne.
If the numbers were there, my guess is Martin would pursue a grand coalition with Fine Gael, and then be stabbed in the back by a ruthless young leader who would jump into a coalition with Sinn Fein. But apart from the lack of a young pretender (or virtually any young TDs) in Fianna Fail, the numbers aren’t there.
They aren’t there for anything. Instead we have Goneril and Regan, exhausted by the compromises of power-sharing, and Cordelia, untested by the compromises of power-grabbing, all locked in a perfect stalemate.
The only solution is another general election, but there’s simply no way either Goneril or Regan can risk calling one, and Cordelia doesn’t have the authority to request it. In that sense, the much-anticipated grand coalition has already happened. You could argue that we’ve effectively had one since the Tallaght Strategy in the 80s.
Meanwhile a caretaker government will linger on echoing various forms of King Lear’s wind-blasted cry on the heath: “Never, never, never, never, never.” This is what we voted for.