MOMENT OF TRUTH

The next election is Micheál Martin’s last realistic shot at becoming Taoiseach. He will want that election on his terms. Only one problem: so too will Leo Varadkar

AFTER the year-end dramatics over whether the minority Fine Gael-led Government would fall over Frances Fitzgerald’s inactions on a series of emails about Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe, politics Irish-style has returned to normal. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has expressed a desire to see Fitzgerald back in Cabinet at some stage and still hasn’t dismissed the idea of the former Tánaiste running for the Presidency, should there be a contest next October.

Varadkar has also told us that he sees no reason why the current Government should not continue in office and see out its full term after the third budget in the confidence and supply arrangement is agreed with Fianna Fáil in the autumn.

This, of course, would mean the renegotiation of a whole new agreement and that would be fraught with difficulty.

In that context, the chances of a 2018 general election must be relatively high. There can be little doubt that the next general election remains Micheál Martin’s one real chance to become Taoiseach.

On being elected Fianna Fáil’s eighth leader in February 2011, the common consensus among the commentariat was that Martin almost inevitably would be the party’s first leader never to reach the office of Taoiseach.

Seven years ago, the narrative was that the Soldiers of Destiny had caused the economic crash that had brought so much misery to the Irish people and would be cast out of office for generations by a vengeful electorate.

Martin himself blew that theory out of the water at both the 2014 local elections – when Fianna Fáil took the most seats and won the highest percentage of the vote – and at the 2016 general election, when his party came within 1.5% and six seats of Fine Gael.

There are two ways we could have a general election in 2018. Either Leo Varadkar decides to have one or Micheál Martin does so.

Both men might make all the right noises about seeing the confidence and supply agreement through to the budget and even renegotiating another one, but the reality is that if either politician thinks the time is right where they can get close to 60 seats, then an election we will have.

That election will be Martin’s third as Fianna Fáil leader and his last realistic shot at being Taoiseach. He is both a good campaigner and debater, as the elections of 2011 and 2016 show.

He staved off the death of Fianna Fáil in 2011 and took it back to the brink of office in 2016. He will want the opportunity to have the election on his terms.

The trouble is so will Leo Varadkar. And Varadkar is not Enda Kenny. We can expect him to be much better on the election stump than Kenny was during the hapless Fine Gael campaign of 2016.

Varadkar wasn’t worried about a possible election in December. Fine Gael has been buoyed by its new leader and by a recent series of good opinion polls. If that trend continues, the confidence and supply agreement won’t withstand another crisis, whether manufactured or real.

WHILE 2018 will be an important year for the dominant centrist parties of Irish politics, it will also be a crucial one for those on the Left. The critical question for the Labour Party is whether it can survive at all. The party is on life support. It is performing even lower in opinion polls than it did at the 2016 election.

It is in a classic political bind. Those who instinctively want to vote left have alternatives and feel betrayed by Labour’s performance in office between 2011 and 2016.

Those who think in the centre have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to vote for. While history will surely be kinder to Labour, that will be of no consolation to the party’s standard bearers come election time.

Ultimately, the prognosis for Labour’s future is bleak indeed.

The question for Sinn Féin is whether its leadership under Mary Lou McDonald can make the inroads into middle Ireland that it never could under Gerry Adams.

Adams was a spectacularly woeful performer in Irish general elections. The nadir came when he failed to understand his party’s economic policy in 2016.

We can expect McDonald to do much better. Sinn Féin has also significantly moved on by making the grown-up decision to consider government as a minority party.

It mightn’t come to pass but it will change the dynamic of both the election itself and the bargaining that will follow it.

One thing we can be sure of is that the forthcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution will have little impact on party politics. There was certainly less division in the Oireachtas committee than many had expected. The fact that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will not impose a whip on their members means that the campaign will be fought out in civil society.

Despite the call by some commentators for a civil debate, we can expect the campaign to be bitter and divisive. The pro-life movement is under some siege at the moment but it is well resourced, is convinced it has right on its side and has some very capable organisers and media performers.

The poll by Ireland Thinks for Friday’s Irish Daily Mail, showing that 53% support the right to abortion up to 12 weeks, will hearten prochoice supporters – but they shouldn’t mistake this for any sort of guarantee that the referendum will be decisively won.

Large leads in social-issue referendums have been shrunk before. This was particularly the case in the divorce referendums in both 1986 and 1995. Yes, Ireland has significantly liberalised in the two decades since divorce was made