Think Cappagh, not Napa, Leo!
FG’s grassroots troubles won’t be solved abroad
THE collapse of the Rugby World Cup bid made me think we’d have done better if the GAA ran it. In Dublin, where I grew up, most towns have a soccer, rugby and GAA club. And the GAA clubs were distinguished by their fundraising efforts.
The soccer clubs, if they bothered, might have a ‘spot the ball’ raffle in the pub after a match. In all my years playing for my local soccer club, I didn’t witness one well-organised event that raised significant money.
The local rugby clubs had expensively organised, sumptuous dinner dances that allowed the wives and girlfriends to put on their finery. Little money was raised but there were loads of pints and stories about trips to Murrayfield and Cardiff Arms Park in the 1970s.
The GAA went about year-round, low-profile fundraising with military precision. Wealthy donors and landlords were approached and squeezed. Table quizzes, repetitive raffles and golf outings that raised steady money were organised. And, as most of the civil servants in our town favoured GAA, the connections with the local authorities were impeccable. So all available State funding was obtained.
The GAA always had better pitches, dressing rooms and clubhouses. Enda Kenny brought a GAA-like fervour to Fine Gael’s fundraising and organisation. Leo Varadkar may well attract the big money, but I believe he will have to rapidly change his style to excel in the unglamorous, tedious work of party organisation.
WHEN Kenny became Fine Gael leader in 2002, his party was in tatters and, importantly, he knew it was. Unencumbered by his later preening self-regard, he set about the unattractive but necessary work of rebuilding his party. Armed with a comprehensive blueprint, compiled by former adviser Frank Flannery, he toured the country, identifying candidates. He reenthused local organisations cowed by the all-conquering Fianna Fáil of Bertie Ahern, who won three general elections in a row.
Slowly, and without the showiness prominent in the current leader, Kenny made his party an electoral force. Aided by a Fianna Fáil implosion in 2011, he led a government with the largest majority in the State’s history.
The trappings of office and failures such as Irish Water distracted him and he lost 26 seats in 2016, but still formed a government. He gave Fine Gael power twice. Leo Varadkar is not untested. He has been in cabinet for almost seven years, andit is a struggle to think of a single significant achievement in that time. As the most high-profile Fine Gael politician in the 2016 election, he was scandalously anonymous. The party grassroots are once again demoralised and rudderless.
He seems to believe spin and razzmatazz is the route to electoral glory. A photo op with Mark Zuckerberg was last week’s trick. Facebook announced welcome jobs and there were oodles of social media shares. But a party needs to be rebuilt and there appears to be very little of that unappealing work going on. Fine Gael has 50 TDs, 29 in Leinster, of which 14 are in Dublin. Despite this Dublin focus, Varadkar failed to bring in a running mate last year, and has little prospect of doing so next time.
This is almost unheard of in modern politics. John Bruton served as taoiseach and as a lone TD for Meath, but didn’t win a general election.
Mr Varadkar’s electoral record doesn’t indicate his priorities are correct. He won the party leadership with 51-22 support in the parliamentary party, but was annihilated by Simon Coveney in the membership college.
Coveney secured 7,051 of ordinary members’ votes to Mr Varadkar’s 3,772. This result also casts doubt on Fine Gael’s claims to have 20,000 members. A majority of voting members are in Munster. These statistics show a very imbalanced party with great weaknesses.
Mr Varadkar is already strong with the Dublin media and liberal luvvies. I am baffled by his continuing pursuit of celebrity photo ops with the likes of Zuckerburg and Justin Trudeau while the basics are ignored.
Fine Gael needs a leader who spends less time on the Government jet and more time travelling the boreens of Munster, Connacht and Ulster. Tipperary, that famous Fine Gael heartland, lacks a Blueshirt TD or senator for the first time in the history of the State. Yet the party has embarked on a bizarre and laborious series of hustings in advance of a selection convention. Fianna Fáil would have decided who it wanted, then fixed up a convention and added a running mate.
ACABINET minister told me last week that the party is counting on Micheal Lowry Jr joining the winner of that selection process on a ticket. Yet in September, Mr Lowry told this newspaper he would not stand while his father Michael was still on the scene. And for a party keen on photo ops, there was no publicity for a recent recruit. Independent councillor Lynsey McGovern joined Fine Gael last month. But she represents the Sandyford/Glencullen ward in Dublin, the base of Senator Neale Richmond. Sandyford is also in the Dublin Rathdown constituency, which already has a female TD, Josepha Madigan.
Madigan and Richmond will expect to be on the ticket for the next election, which explains the lack of a photo op. This was another case of an area of strength being strengthened.
The finest GAA coaches will work on their squad’s weaknesses through the dark winter nights. Strengths will look after themselves on summer pitches.