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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
2 8 April 2016
A
fter the General Election the political vista
remains hazy. A minority Government led by
Fine Gael but backed by Fianna Fáil looks
the most likely after Fianna Fáil's churlish
rebuttal of Fine Gael's Partnership Pro-
posal. Before the election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil
said they refused to go into coalition with one another.
Sinn Féin is refusing to go into coalition with anyone,
and Fianna Fáil seems to be serious about it. Radical-
left groups such as the AAA/ PBP despite proclaiming
to represent the people couldn’t convince many of them
to join their cause. These are the fundaments of the
situation.
A week before the General Election, Fine Gael ran an
ad in The Sunday Times that stated Ireland was the envy
of Europe. This depiction of Ire-
land and its reflection of Fine Gael
will undoubtedly have jarred with
who was vulnerable or angry at
the incompetence, iniquity and
misconduct of the outgoing gov-
ernment. During the general
election campaign the Labour
party leader Joan Burton demon-
strated all the bluster we expect
from Irish politicians on the cusp of demise. “The worst
mistake we could make now”, she told her party confer-
ence in January, “is to squander our hard-earned
progress by gambling on uncertainty”. She inferred
from this that the people would return Labour to Gov-
ernment. The efforts by Labour to appeal to its voter
base failed, in large part because people were jaded
being lied to. A lot of people voted for Independents
because of discontentment with the mainstream politi-
cal parties but this vote was largely cast without
expectation that the agenda of the Independent would
ever be enshrined in any government policy. Interest-
ingly, perhaps dangerously, in fact low expectations of
the implications of these protest votes may be
confounded.
Irish politicians lie brazenly with no apology. It is the
cynicism that this has generated that underpins the cur-
rent deadlock. The lack of integrity has become so
pervasive that it verges on a lack of legitimacy.
A lot of people may simply just sigh at these remarks
but that is the problem. In Ireland we have become so
accustomed to political corruption and contempt that
it doesn’t strike us as an issue, less still one we can do
something about.
Before the 2011 election Fianna Fáil was keen to insist
that it “made all the difficult decisions”, despite the fact
it had bankrupted the country. Dishonesty shines
through even when our politicians have cornered the
market in attempting to be honest: Lucinda Creighton
voted against the Protection Of Life During Pregnancy
Bill – an issue of conscience. What was extraordinary
was that she didn’t explain why she didn’t vote with her
conscience on a range of other poltical issues, many of
which she felt strongly enough about to form a new
political party, the earth-bound Renua party.
There have been some attempts to resolve this: an
elected Ceann Comhairle for example will tend to work
The internal ethos of Irish
political parties limits
reform more than the
internal structures of out
political system
An optimistic
take on the stasis
A minority government leading to a
countervailing new political force
by Robert Dunne
POLITICS
April 2016 2 9
against government (or even Fine Gael-Fianna
Fáil) hegemony, albeit that it would have been
more encouraging had the incumbent come
from outside the ranks of the big parties.
Eoghan Murphy proposed a series of “radical”
reforms to the whip, which would include the
ostensibly rather unradical freedom of TDs to
question the leaders of their own parties.
Partisan jealousies have undermined many
efforts at progressive legislation. Last year the
Social Democrats proposed to create an Anti-
Corruption Agency based on an Australian
model. It was voted down by the coalition
parties.
The Parliamentary structures in Ireland don’t
allow independent and opposition party TDs to
influence policy in a meaningful way. In the US
Senate Committees are structured in such a
way that independently minded politicians can
influence policy.
Quite recently the OECD also revealed that
Ireland had one of the least effective Parlia-
ments in Europe. On the budgetary process
Ireland ranks lowest. In the UK, politicians
voting against the party whip are only rarely
expelled from the party.
If anything the internal ethos of Irish political
parties limits reform more than the internal
structures of out political system.
In many other countries, it is possible for poli-
ticians in the same political party to differ
greatly from each other on key issues. In the
Conservative party in Britain the views of David
Cameron would differ greatly from those of
Eurosceptic Daniel Hannan. Likewise In the UK
Labour Party, the views of Trotskyite Jeremy
Corbyn are radically different from Blairite Liz
Kendall's.
In the US, Democrats and Republicans from
the same parties disagree with each other on a
host of issues: think Trump and Romney. In Ger-
many it is an offence to interfere with the
conscientious decision of a member of
Parliament.
In Ireland it’s almost impossible to point to
any mavericks within the mainstream political
parties, rather the mockable pathology is to
defend everything the ruling party does as if it
were gospel.
The Irish political system is broken. We are
facing the prospect of a second election or a
coalition of parties which defied their demo-
cratic mandate by going into coalition with a
party they said they would not go into coalition
with.
When individual TDs in coalition Govern-
ments can’t be trusted to stand up for an
ideology, a mandate or even their constituents
a minority Government would probably be the
best option. It will be more difficult to get legis-
lation passed, but at the moment there is
virtually no oversight, almost all legislation that
is proposed by the Government is passed. The
second house of Parliament the Seanad is only
capable of delaying legislation not repealing it;
Seanad reform looks unlikely. In the US legisla-
tion has to be passed through three houses
before it can be approved.
A minority Government would not guarantee
support for every piece of legislation that the
ruling parties propose. But any stringent analy-
sis suggest that is no bad thing.
The only case for optimism is the possibility
of the creation of a left and right divide in Irish
Politics. The Lanigan’s ball of Fine Gael and
Fianna Fáil allowed whichever party was in
opposition, as a challenge, however implausi-
ble, to the status quo.
In the last election Sinn Féin did not prove to
be very transfer-friendly and it is not likely that
it will be in a position to lead in the foreseeable
future. However, a Left comprising the Social
Democrats, Labour, the Green Party, radical-
left groups and Independents could help to fill
this void.
If the new government is heavy with inde-
pendents promoting a rural-renewal agenda it
is possible that a new opposition party may
pursue a clear internationalist and ideological,
cosmopolitan and pro-urban agenda.
Meanwhile, if both our tainted and ideology-
free dinosaur parties were finally exposed as
the symbiotic essential components of the
status quo there would be space for this or,
better still, for a new opposition force or party.
If both our tainted
dinosaur parties were
finally exposed as the
essential components
of the status quo there
will be space for a new
opposition force or party
The electoral sharks of history
