FF’s promises are terrifying - not realistic

LAST night, Micheál Martin delivered his leader’s speech at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis, his last before, as the late PJ Mara memorably put it, showtime comes around again.

The General Election will be a make-orbreak one for Fianna Fáil. In the near 100 years since the Civil War that cast such a long shadow over politics on the island, the stranglehold of its divisive legacy finally has been broken. Instead, we have seen in the last five years a genuine move to more ideologically polarised policies, and very different approaches to issues such as austerity, water charges and property tax. When you look at some of the individuals involved, on all sides, this may not be the greatest choice we ever have had as an electorate, but two very distinct styles of government are being offered as options.

On the one side, there are those who arguably have favoured the better off as economic adjustments were made; on the other, there are those who would have almost no one pay for anything at all.

Somewhere in the middle, there might well be a so-called sweet spot for Fianna Fáil to make a comeback. Indeed, it was the genius of PJ Mara, whether you liked the man or not, to always know where that sweet spot was and to exploit it effectively, especially on his last outing when Fianna Fáil was returned to power against all the odds. Fundamentally, Mara always pushed the party’s strengths, but Mr Martin now has chosen to launch a negative poster campaign that features a large photograph of the Taoiseach and what is identified as his priority, keeping the rich rich while the HSE remains in crisis.

This all seems rather odd. After all, it was Fianna Fáil that created the artificial boom that made many rich – and it was Mr Martin himself who created the HSE, without any clear advantage over the regional health board system it replaced. So neither of these criticisms, however well presented, realistically will change anyone’s perception of Fianna Fáil.

In his speech, Mr Martin cautioned against the auction politics of Fine Gael – then promptly promised 45,000 new social houses, increased rent supplement, 2,000 extra gardaí, lower employer PRSI for SMEs, tax equality for the selfemployed, and a cut in capital gains tax for start-up businesses.

There would a revision of zero-hours contracts, a reduction in the USC, tax breaks for childcare costs, a reform of property tax, increased spending on the disabled and on mental health services, and the abolition of Irish Water. Mr Martin promised that all of this was achievable based on current economic projections, but it seems like an awful lot for which to find funding.

What we have now is just about everyone promising the sun, the moon and the stars and that, honestly, is terrifying. No one disputes that the burden of austerity was unfairly applied, and that many hundreds of thousands scrape by on very little – but this is a time for targeted help, and not the scattergun politics of old, where everyone can read into the proposals something that might be of benefit.

The fragile recovery needs to reach its conclusion before we start spending big again. Splashing the cash now, in the hope that we will pay it back later, is precisely what got us here in the first place.