She cannae take any more, captain... she’s gonna blow!
It’s obvious FF and FG’s supply of conf idence has run dry
WHAT will it take for Fianna Fáil to pull the plug on this Government? ‘We’ve kept our side of that supply and confidence agreement. We’ve stuck by the Government through a lot of thick and some thin,’ said the clearly exasperated Fianna Fáil TD John Lahart on RTÉ’s Prime Time last Thursday.
Lahart is one of his party’s more considered backbenchers. Thoughtful, articulate and not given to the partisanship, rage and acerbity of either Barry Cowen or Willie O’Dea, his evident frustration with Fine Gael is a sure sign Fianna Fáil is losing patience with the Blueshirts and the agreement that is keeping them in Government.
Fine Gael sent Kate O’Connell out to RTÉ to joust with Lahart. O’Connell took a second seat for Fine Gael in Dublin Bay South last year. A successful pharmacist, she has made a big impression on the Dáil and on Fine Gael itself since her election. She is unapologetically liberal and has been particularly vocal on Repealing the Eighth.
That O’Connell took out Lucinda Creighton in the election was an added bonus for the Fine Gaelers. Although O’Connell’s running mate Eoghan Murphy is running the Leo Varadkar election campaign, both he and Simon Coveney are keen to have her support in the upcoming contest (although, given the Taoiseach’s unparalleled ability to hang on to office, that could be some way off).
O’Connell might have got off on the wrong foot on Prime Time by declaring that she knew very little about water upon entering the joint committee on the future funding of domestic water services – but she quickly got into her stride, launching a full frontal attack on Lahart and Fianna Fáil, accusing them of getting into bed with Sinn Féin and the hard left and of being anti-rural Ireland.
Fine Gael’s woes in the last election were mainly rural in nature. Its vote held up well in Dublin. Unexpected victories on the north side for Enda’s bête noir Noel Rock and the stand-out minister of this Government Paschal Donohoe were copperfastened by the two seats the party won in both Dublin Bay South and Dún Laoghaire.
By contrast, Fine Gael lost a seat in Coveney’s Cork South Central, was fully wiped out in Tipperary and won only 12 out of 43 seats in Munster. It was little better in Connacht-Ulster where the party only won 8 out of 28 seats.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil’s recovery was based in Munster and the west. There is a school of thought gaining currency that water charges is such a red line issue for Fine Gael that it needs to fight an election on it.
Since before Christmas, I’ve been advocating the view on these pages that either Coveney or Varadkar, or both, should go to the Taoiseach and say ‘time’s up’. The trouble for them now is that it’s too late. Coveney was again telling the Irish people this week that he trusted Kenny’s judgement on when to do the right thing for both party and country. Outside of pretty much everyone in Fine Gael, nobody else trusts Kenny’s judgement on this.
Fine Gael cannot go to the polls on water charges, or even on the protecting-the-hard-pressed-middleclass-who-have-to-pay-for-everything mantra, given Kenny still has to indicate when he will step down. For its part, no matter how much it protests, there is a view rapidly gaining hold that Fianna Fáil has gone back to its opportunist ways on water. As far back as September 2010, the Brian Cowen Cabinet, of which Micheál Martin was a central figure, drafted legislation for water metering and charging, and proposed establishing an agency that sounded very like the criticised Irish Water. This was two months before the Troika arrived. Now Fianna Fáil is a staunch advocate of paying for water through general taxation, not metering, and called for the abolition of Irish Water in its 2016 manifesto.
John Lahart was at pains to state that Fianna Fáil had done everything to honour the confidence and supply agreement but that he and his colleagues were honourable people. The unspoken assumption was that Fianna Fáil is close to the end of its tether. Governing is in Fianna Fáil’s DNA and there can be no doubt that it galls the party to see Fine Gael in office.
It seems Fianna Fáil is quite happy with the arrangement. It has the cover of opposition to complain about everything and can wait to bring down the Government when it chooses. The ensuing election, the theory goes, will bring it close to 60 seats, allowing it to lead some sort of coalition government. But there is no guarantee of this – the austerity electorate is fickle.
By accusing Fianna Fáil of being anti-rural, left-wing populists, Kate O’Connell has given Fine Gael its rallying cry for the next election.
Even if the parties reach a compromise in relation to water, it’s clear the confidence and supply agreement cannae take any more, as Scotty in Star Trek would say. That is a good thing because, as this Government limps on, it’s clear it has no power. Neither does Fianna Fáil. The result is a vacuum where no decisions are taken, Brexit looms and commissions of inquiry are the way of governing. That is no way to run a country.