FF and Greens eye up each other as partners
LAST night the leaders of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party had that ‘vindicated’ look that ambitious politicians take on when they have a plan to match their ambitions. Yesterday’s by-election results will almost certainly lead to six months of tortuous negotiations about a future pact – and both parties want to be in government after a general election next summer.
Fianna Fáil’s victories in Cork and Wexford and the surge for the Green Party’s candidates in urban suburbs and a victory in Fingal set the pace. And both parties are confident of repeating and improving yesterday’s results in the general election expected next May.
Fianna Fail’s wins also reinforced Micheál Martin’s leadership and his decision to enter the ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Fine Gael government. An arrangement he would expect Fine Gael to follow if circumstances require it after the next election.
Winning their first by-election yesterday was also something of a coming-of-age moment for the Green Party, which is the most likely junior partner in government for either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
EAMON Ryan is very critical of Fine Gael’s corporate ethos. And he sat as a minister in cabinet from 2007 until 2011 with Fianna Fáil. Four by elections and no winners were a major disappointment but to be beaten by Sinn Fein in Dublin Mid West was particularly disappointing for the Taoiseach. It also dashes his hopes for three-in-a-row general election victories for Fine Gael next year.
After being denounced by party headquarters in Dublin, Verona Murphy’s team say her strong performance in Wexford was in spite of Fine Gael best efforts to disown their candidate.
And the Wexford by-election raised questions for the Fine Gael organisation about who they are and the values they stand for.
And whatever about ethos, Fine Gael has a competence problem: after nine years, the National Children’s Hospital, broadband, the Public Services’ Card and other debacles have punctured Fine
Gael’s reputation. Their record in government and voters’ dissatisfaction with public services were contributing factors to yesterday’s record low turn-out at the polls. One Fine Gael supporter said yesterday the party should be relieved that the full story of the Dara Murphy
controversy was largely unknown when voters went to the polls in the by- election. But after a succession of tumbling opinion polls and poor performances in local and European elections, Sinn Féin will be pleased with their performance. But they are still the ‘untouchables’ among Irish parties.
And yesterday results for the Labour Party confirm that the country’s oldest political party still has a strong pulse.
THE robust showing of Paul Gogarty, a former Green Party TD running as an Independent in Dublin Mid West, was by far the best performance by any Independent – but his ‘Green’ history clearly gave him a huge boost. Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan have worked together before when Fianna Fáil and the Greens were in coalition in 2011. And Micheál Martin is famously eco-friendly and Eamon Ryan is keen to be seen as pragmatic. Time will tell if ecofriendly pragmatism is in the programme for government after the next election.
A shout-out to the satirists in Waterford Whispers and their spoof coverage of the Healy-Rae convictions for assault in Tralee District Court. They ‘reported’ that the HealyRaes are calling for moderately drunken assaults on tourists to be legalised. FORMER British Ambassador to Ireland Ivor Roberts became an Irish citizen in 2017, two years after taking a seat on the board of the Dublin-based communications consultants, Red Flag. He is also a candid commentator on the pariah of Britain’s royal family, Prince Andrew: ‘His kind of diplomacy is not mine, in the sense that it has not always led to improved relations with the people he was supposed to be schmoozing.’
Roberts recalled his time as Britain’s ambassador to Italy when Prince Andrew greeted the head of a wellknown fashion house at a party with: ‘Never heard of you.’ He summed up visits from Prince Andrew in Italy thus: ‘Let’s just say, I did not enjoy them much.’