THE PLAN TO KEEP FG AND FF IN POWER
Backchannel talks agree Martin to be Taoiseach by St Patrick’s Day Varadkar gets Brexit role Eamon Ryan as Tánaiste
FIANNA Fáil and Fine Gael have opened backchannel communications about forming a government with the help of the Green Party. The plan would ensure that Micheál Martin is elected Taoiseach in time to meet US president Donald Trump in Washington for Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Sources in the parties say that although there will be a series of parliamentary set-pieces and efforts to appease Sinn Féin voters, the deal will be done in time for the Washington events. The meeting between the Taoiseach and Mr Trump is provisionally scheduled for March 12.
Entry into a grand coalition may not be plain sailing for Fianna Fáil, whose frontbencher Barry Cowen told the Irish Mail on Sunday last night that he was
‘reserving judgement’ on the decision to enter government, and he was ‘not driven by the prospect of getting higher office’.
Mr Cowen’s intervention was being seen by observers as expressing an undercurrent of the dissatisfaction felt by some Fianna Fáil party members, with a special Ard Fheis required to approve any decision to enter a coalition.
Dissatisfaction with the moves towards a grand coalition was also expressed yesterday by Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats, who both suggested that the moves would thwart the vote for change at last week’s election.
Fine Gael will demand a rotating Taoiseach and a slew of senior ministries as the price for entering the so-called ‘grand coalition’, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
But the civil war parties will allow the Green Party leader Eamon Ryan to take the role of Tánaiste.
A senior Fine Gael figure told the Mail that the party is willing to allow Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin to serve three out of five years as Taoiseach and for Leo Varadkar to do two years.
Mr Varadkar would be expected to take on a Brexit role for the first three years that would see him spend much of his time capitalising on relationships he has built up in Europe since 2017.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs told the MoS last night that they would
‘We will build ourselves out of this mess’
be willing to give three Cabinet seats to the Green Party. That would leave six each for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
The MoS is aware that two powerful figures – a Fine Gael cabinet minister and a Fianna Fáil TD had exploratory discussions about a grand coalition at the start of the week.
Even as the votes were being counted on Sunday evening, a highprofile Fianna Fáil frontbench TD approached a former Fine Gael minister and asked him to act as an intermediary for the grand coalition. They remained in contact all last week.
Fine Gael will hold a parliamentary party meeting tomorrow in which TDs and senators are expected to give Mr Varadkar full ‘government negotiation’ powers.
A Green Party source last night confirmed that there is ‘enthusiasm’ within the party for talks.
A Fine Gael minister said last night that the Department of Finance is likely to be split again to accommodate two large parties of similar strength. It could become Finance and Public Expenditure again. Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe could return to Finance and Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath could go to Public Expenditure.
However, figures in both parties said that Fianna Fáil is likely to fill the Housing and Health portfolios.
A Fianna Fáil TD close to the party leadership told the MoS last night that it would be possible to give the Department of Housing enhanced financial powers, possibly putting it under the aegis of Public Expenditure – and the portfolio could then go to Michael McGrath, the most formidable figure on the Fianna Fáil frontbench.
Several senior figures across the three parties of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens who briefed the MoS last night said the government, if it can be agreed, will be founded on the one guiding tenet of house building.
A Fine Gael minister said that the perception in the established parties is that housing destroyed them in the General Election – and boosted Sinn Féin. ‘We are going to build ourselves out of this mess,’ said the minister. ‘If that means getting involved in a house building extravaganza, so be it. ‘You can say many things about Fianna Fáil but they know how to build houses.
‘The key is that we’ll be there to keep an eye on them and stop them dragging us into another property collapse.’
After a string of controversies at the Department of Justice under Fine Gael over the last number of years, the portfolio is likely to go to Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan.
According to sources in Fianna Fáil their six Cabinet places would be filled from the leading contenders of Mr McGrath, Dara Calleary, Thomas Byrne, Jim O’Callaghan, Niall Collins, Charlie McConalogue, Barry Cowen and Cavan Monaghan TD Niamh Smyth.
Mr Collins, a target of Fine Gael criticism before the election, has reinforced his position with strong media performances last week, which steadied support for Mr Martin in the wake of perceptions that he was open to talking to Sinn Féin. Limerick TD Collins will be extremely important in bringing the Fianna Fáil membership along with the innovative plan.
Mr Varadkar will face more challenges in choosing a Cabinet to enter this historic alliance. Older
TDs such as Charlie Flanagan and Richard Bruton or those, like Michael Creed, who were perceived to have come close to being dropped in the past, will be most under threat.
Fine Gael contenders for the six places would include Mr Donohoe, Tánaiste Simon Coveney, Joe McHugh, Heather Humphreys, Josepha Madigan and Helen McEntee.
Fianna Fáil’s legal adviser Darren Lehane is a leading contender for attorney general, again Fine Gael’s travails in the area of Justice will help a Fianna Fáil candidate.
A senior Fianna Fáil TD, who was delegated to approach Fine Gael TDs by his party’s leadership last week, told the MoS last night: ‘This is going to happen, whether we or Fine Gael like it or not.
‘Politics is always a numbers game and the numbers make it so. We’ve all been very nice in our attacks on Sinn Féin, but they have only recently come into the democratic
sphere and to be brutally frank we believe it is in the national interest to keep them away from power.’
The Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael camps will put out many noble reasons for their historic union, but one TD spoke candidly about their selling point to recalcitrant colleagues.
‘There are going to be lots of jobs going – and plenty to be divided up between us all.’
There is talk in Fine Gael of offering Micheál Martin a return to the Department of Foreign Affairs for a year then giving him the EU Commissioner’s role when Phil Hogan’s term is up.
Senior figures in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael said they agree that Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald should be allowed to attempt to be elected Taoiseach in the Dáil next Thursday.
However, since even she appears to have given up on the prospect of a left-wing alliance, that is unlikely to happen. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party can then move to full-on official negotiations.
‘Mary Lou has stated she wants to be Taoiseach,’ said a Fine Gael minister who is centrally involved in driving the grand coalition.
‘So we must let her try and show how futile that it is. It needs to be remembered that 75% of the electorate did not vote for Sinn Féin.
‘We have a parliamentary democracy and a public apparatus – people need to see how a Taoiseach is elected.
‘And it’s not done by cribbing and moaning because other democratic parties refuse to go into coalition with a party that they are genuinely disturbed by.’
The hope is have the coalition deal sealed and to elect Micheál Martin as Taoiseach before the important annual White House St Patrick’s Day ceremony which this year is timetabled for March 12.
The Ireland Fund dinner, which is always attended by the Taoiseach, will be held on Wednesday, March 11. Such scheduling is not unusual. The Taoiseach is also expected to visit Boston on this year’s trip.
There is gradual realisation in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party that a grand coalition is the only option – although there are still some dissenting voices. Several influential figures spoke to TDs and senators in advance of the parliamentary party meeting last week about the merits of the plan.
‘We had been told there was going to be a fiery meeting,’ said a TD, ‘but that petered out and ultimately it was a sad occasion, people were overcome by the scale of our losses.’
Another Fianna Fáil figure said that TDs are coming to understand what the leadership has understood for some time.
‘This is a typical situation in continental Europe – three medium-sized parties – we have to live with it. And the policies of Sinn Féin do not sit with Fianna Fáil. The membership can’t forget the Troubles. Murder, kidnap and gangsterism leave scars on national memory.’
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil sources have been using similar language.
A Fine Gael minister said: ‘There are a number of stages of grief. There was sadness at our losses, then anger at our leaders and despair that people could vote for anti-democratic Sinn Féin.
‘Now we are getting on with it and making preparations for the future.
‘I don’t want to go in with Fianna Fáil, it breaks my heart, but we have to do it.’
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, speaking yesterday at a party meeting in west Belfast, accused Mr Martin of arrogance.
She said: ‘It now seems that
Micheál Martin’s plan is to deny the people what they voted for. That is an arrogant and untenable position, given the strength of Sinn Féin’s mandate.
‘The political establishment of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are circling the wagons in defence of a status quo that will not deliver the change citizens voted for last weekend.’
And speaking to RTÉ News yesterday, Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall agreed with those sentiments:
‘Last Saturday, people voted for a change in direction in the country and solutions to the big problems in relation to housing and health, quality of life, and all of those kind of issues that impact on people’s lives,’ she said.
‘I recognise that there is talk of a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael arrangement, potentially a coalition, and I have to say that that doesn’t sound like change to me.’
‘Murder, kidnap and gangsterism leave scars ’