Simon Harris the big punches
themselves for what is traditionally the most bad-tempered of Oireachtas sessions, which will end in July. Days are long and full of votes as the Government tries to get the legislative programme complete. Human nature dictates that when a large group of people are sequestered in claustrophobic surrounds (for that is what the 18th century Leinster House is) moods become dark.
AS A final act, sources close to Harris’s operation say that the biggest item on the Government’s agenda – the new funding model for RTÉ – will be finalised in July. Sinn Féin will be forced to make a public stance on the Offences Against the State Act for a final time before the election and then politicians head for their constituencies and the beaches. What will fray tempers more is that the new Taoiseach and most other politicians will want to be out canvassing. On June 7, we have the local and European elections and these will strongly influence Harris’s actions for the coming year.
Harris will return in September and all the reserves of energy that may have been stored up will immediately be expended on getting the Coalition’s final budget through the Houses of the Oireachtas. What will have changed between April and September that will make this difficult? Firstly, it is likely that at least two more Fine Gael TDs will have announced their intentions not to run in the next General Election. One of those – despite recent public statements – may even be Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe. Again, human nature plays a role at this point, outgoing Fine Gael TDs happy to vote for Harris as Taoiseach in April, are less likely to assume the burden of voting for a budget. This applies to independents too. Still, the budget should pass, just, but a lot of political capital and energy will be expended ensuring this. Then the real fun begins.
Sinn Féin, already calling for a General Election, may well have the power to force one by then. Autumn is when a series of motions of no-confidence will begin rolling in. Take one departing Fine Gael TD and former minister as a dark portent. Donegal’s Joe McHugh announced early in the political cycle that he would not be standing in next election. Then in that tense summer term of 2022 he lost the Fine Gael whip over a highly contentious vote on the defective blocks issue that deeply concerns his Donegal constituency. He voted against the Government again, and with Sinn Féin, unexpectedly, in the summer session, of 2023, on supports for firefighters. Just one retiring Fine Gael TD going overboard in the coming months drains the well of political capital still further.
Then we have the independents.
Quite a few, even some of those who have pledged to vote for Harris this week, have told me that they want to see the General Election over with before Christmas.
Why would they then expend THEIR political capital supporting flailing ministers in the autumn?
The previous minority government collapsed in early 2020 over a series of no confidence motions. The first came against the hopeless Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, in December 2019. Fianna Fail TDs, who were supporting Fine Gael in a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement deeply regretted supporting Murphy, especially when they ended up explaining to voters the following February why they had supported an utterly discredited minister and his housing policies a few weeks earlier.
The government ultimately collapsed when independent Michael Lowry announced early in 2020 that he could not vote for a health minister in yet another confidence motion. Many Fianna Fail TDs told me in those febrile months that they too would not publicly damage themselves supporting that minister. The minister? Simon Harris.
It is easy to forget that the legal deadline for that Fine Gael government was, in fact, spring 2021 and it could have struggled on.
THE final deadline for this Coalition is immovably set: Spring 2025. Anyone supporting a damaged Government minister and his or her policies knows that they have to explain to the electorate soon afterwards why they did so. And don’t doubt Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats or Labour will choose the most uncomfortable, damaging, specific points to focus on. Independents could be asked to publicly support Stephen Donnelly’s National Childrens’ Hospital spend or trolly policies or Helen McEntee’s – if she’s still in Justice – Garda plans. Michael Lowry, again, or Noel Grealish could give themselves a martyr’s publicity going to the polls. Or even former Government TDs Joe McHugh or Marc MacSharry, neither of whom is standing again, could decide to go out in a blaze of glory.
The instability of Simon Harris’s Coalition is evident in the undeniable arithmetic. What we don’t, and can’t, quantify, are events. Yet an event, like last year’s Dublin riots, or a ministerial infraction, could happen.
Harris can get tough on law and order and make promises. But what he can’t do is fundamentally change the course of the Coalition.
He can’t, for instance, force a change in Government tax policy. That has been set for this budget as part of a three budget package and, besides, the Spring statement, which now almost supersedes the budget, is ready to go.
Against all the odds, Harris, could perhaps keep the Government going until next year. It’s not an impossibility. But if so, he needs to bed in now for a long war of attrition. It is more likely that a quick battle in the autumn would be more advantagous, many of his coalition colleagues feel.
In the first flush of leadership Simon Harris will have an optimistic view of how the next year unfolds. Yet pragmatism is at the core of any leader’s plan. Harris knows he will be punched in the mouth, repeatedly, but it is how he responds to adversity in the coming months, or even a year, that will define himself, his party and our future government.
It’s easy to forget that the previous Fine Gael government’s legal deadline was spring 2021