100 days: Frustration across politics as wait for new government goes on
Talks aimed at working out a programme for government are to step up this week, writes Hugh O’Connell
TOMORROW marks 100 days since the general election and the country still doesn’t have a properly functioning government. It means no laws can be passed, nor can there be any decisions taken on some of the most fundamental economic and societal issues that will face us in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis.
To say this is causing major frustration among the general public would be an overstatement. Most of us are just worried about the current crisis and its impact on our health, our family, our friends and our mental and financial well-being.
But the politicians are certainly vexed. They range from the Fine Gael TDs who strongly oppose going in with the old enemy and the Greens, to the Fianna Fail TDs who are struggling to convince their own members to go along with the idea (one TD privately suggested to me last week that Fianna Fail is finished, no matter what happens) to Sinn Fein TDs who think a rotten dirty deal is being cooked up by Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
The frustration also extends to those stuck in Government despite no longer being members of the Dail.
Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone had a tough week as her proposed childcare scheme for frontline workers fell apart. There was little sympathy from members of the Cabinet who privately criticised her handling of the issue in Friday’s Irish Independent. It prompted Ms Zappone to take them to task before the Cabinet meeting on Friday morning. She is said to have read out some of the quotes attributed to some of them in the newspaper before telling those present that she would be available afterwards if anyone who has a problem with her wanted to say it to her face. For those appearing via video link, she gave out her phone number, saying they could call her.
The bizarre intervention raised eyebrows to say the least. Ms Zappone has done some formidable work in the childcare sector over the last four years and secured unprecedented levels of State support for creches and childcare facilities. But she lost her Dail seat in Dublin South-West more than three months ago and the job of addressing the current crisis should be someone else’s.
Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens held several rounds of negotiations last week but the progress is slow, all sides report. There were specific policy meetings on housing and justice issues as well as a broad economic overview in which Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe painted a fairly bleak picture of the fiscal and unemployment situation facing the country over the coming years.
Neither justice nor housing issues are expected to derail the talks although the nittygritty of housing policy is likely to throw up ideological battles that will have to be resolved. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail see a role for the private sector in building houses, the Greens want public housing on public land.
One of the more interesting sub-plots of the talks is the presence of Mr Donohoe for Fine Gael and Neasa Hourigan, the finance spokesperson for the Greens.
They share the same Dublin Central constituency and allies of Mr Donohoe claim there is “increased tension” between the pair as a result.
Many in Fine Gael suspect she is not negotiating in good faith, having voted against bringing the Greens into talks, but they note, too, that her seat is on a knife-edge so it is arguably in her interest to get a deal and avoid an election. The emergence of a threeyear-old tweet from the Green TD, in which she suggested Fine Gael TDs had a “personal interest” in keeping rents high because more than a third of them are landlords, has not helped matters
It prompted Fine Gael minister John Paul Phelan to declare that some Green Party members “openly hate private property and free enterprise”. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admonished Mr Phelan for his remarks and urged the parties not to focus on what they might have said about each other in the past. “I think the best thing we can all do is maybe set aside and forget about some of the things that we may have all said about each other,” he said.
Mr Varadkar knows only too well the difficulties that arise from going back over old comments, given the nasty remarks he has aimed at Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and the Green Party leader Eamon Ryan in the last three years alone.
The irony in Ms Hourigan’s case is that her father, Michael Hourigan, is a former long-serving Fine Gael councillor and Limerick mayor, for whom she canvassed when she was younger. She has said she did not get her politics from him, rather they have been informed by her experience as an architect who specialises in sustainable development.
Ms Hourigan, who had not responded to requests for comment last week, is greatly liked in the Green Party. “There’s one thing with Neasa that lots of people don’t realise. She’s really well regarded in the party and lots love her,” said a party figure.
Her verdict on whatever deal is hammered out will be crucial to gaining the twothirds’ support of party members that will be needed for Greens to enter government.
This coming week is seen as crucial to advancing progress on a programme for government. The exchange of policy papers and the formulation of position papers endorsed by all three sides is expected to ramp up. The convoluted process at the moment involves a series of modular meetings on specific policy areas at which papers are exchanged before the rapporteurs for each party — special advisers John Carroll for Fine Gael, Deirdre Gillane for Fianna Fail and Anna Conlan for the Greens — try to agree a common text. “We need to move to a point where we have two or three modular meetings a day. It needs to intensify,” said one senior figure in the talks. “There is a view among everyone that it needs to step up next week.”
There have been hiccups which could lead to bigger problems in the coming days.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are annoyed at the pace at which the Greens are moving, with some grumbling that they must refer back to their party structures too often. The presence of Eamon Ryan at the briefing from Mr Donohoe earlier last week took some of those involved by surprise, given that Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin have yet to show up at Agriculture House.
The Greens are annoyed about leaks. “These negotiations are only going to work if we respect the confidentiality of the process,” said one of the party’s negotiators.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail was more than a little upset to learn yesterday morning that Eoghan Murphy’s officials are working on contingency planning for elections and referendums which may need to take place under public health restrictions.
“Imagine prioritising nursing homes for election plans instead of worrying about dead and sick residents,” said one seething Fianna Fail TD. “As usual Fine Gael go a step too far in their spin.”
A senior Fine Gael figure shrugged: “It’s the responsibility of the government to protect the integrity of our most important democratic process. What’s there to be angry about?”
But everyone will be angry if they don’t get on with it and form a government soon.
‘We need to move to a point where we have two or three modular meetings a day. It needs to intensify’