James Downey: One year on, the coalition must leave comfort zone
THIS time last year, we were in the middle of a general election campaign whose result was foreordained. We had to decide only two questions: the extent of Fianna Fail's devastation and whether the election would deliver a Fine Gael single-party government or a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.
I have always maintained that we voted for the result we got. Some dispute that, pointing to evidence in the Fine Gael transfer patterns. But there is no evidence that Fine Gael supporters were unhappy with the outcome -- or, indeed, that Labour voters expected anything else. The slogan "Gilmore for Taoiseach" never had much credibility.
A minor question: Could Sinn Fein make major gains, perhaps enough to overtake Fianna Fail?
It could not and did not. Fianna Fail took 20 Dail seats, Sinn Fein 14.
Since then, Fianna Fail has lost one seat with the sad death of Brian Lenihan. Fine Gael has suffered one defection. Labour lost one and gained one, only to lose the second, most curiously, within weeks with the defection of the new deputy for Dublin West, Patrick Nulty.
These changes made no material difference to the composition of the Dail. The Government parties have an overall majority of 110 seats out of 166.
And in the context of a parliamentary democracy, that is not a healthy situation. To work properly, the system requires a strong government and a strong opposition. In effect, we have neither.
The Government is strong only in numerical terms. Its most important policies are dictated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The opposition is unquestionably colourful, often noisy, and going nowhere -- with one possible exception.
In so far as we can identify any plausible or effective opposition, Sinn Fein has provided it. And in so far as the present Dail can boast any "stars", it owes them to Sinn Fein. The party is hampered by the "fish out of water" position of its leader, Gerry Adams, but several impressive people have emerged.
They include the obvious nominees, Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty, but also less well-known names like Peadar Toibin and Padraig Mac Lochlainn.
It is reasonable to assume that Gerry Adams will retire on either side of the next general election, and one of these will take over. Ms McDonald is the favourite, not least because she represents a Dublin constituency whereas Mr Doherty and Mr Mac Lochlainn sit for border constituencies. A Dublin leader would make very good sense.
Sinn Fein, meanwhile, profits from Fianna Fail's continuing disarray. Any recovery by the once-dominant party will be limited and will take a very long time. In time, Sinn Fein must also profit from Labour's vulnerability. On any plausible assessment, we will still be in the grip of austerity and low (if any) growth at the time of the next election. If so, Labour will be the major focus of electoral discontent. But this is not why I think, and have said more than once, that Labour should have gone into opposition last March and let Fine Gael form a single-party government with support from independent deputies and/or an arrangement with Fianna Fail. A better reason is that Labour would have dominated the opposition benches and could have offered a coherent critique of the Government's actions.
Not that Labour, or any opposition party, would have had much room for manoeuvre. In or out of office, no party can make a substantial alteration in the terms of the "troika" bailout. But in office, both Labour and Fine Gael are handicapped by the foolish promises made a year ago. These promises have always baffled me. How could anyone imagine they could be fulfilled? And they would not have affected the election result. Promises or no promises, the outcome would have been exactly the same.
Yet, a year on, they have not been forgotten but constantly thrown in ministers' faces, along with irrelevant controversies over property tax, turf-cutting, septic tanks and whatever you're having yourself.
In the meantime, the Government has actually fulfilled at least one promise. However, it has got, and it deserves, no credit. It promised to extend the Dail sitting hours, and it has indeed extended them. This was always ridiculous. The point about Dail sittings is not their length but their quality -- their contribution to the democratic system and the welfare of the country. Incoherent debates do nothing for either, but merely fill up time.
No wonder so many deputies did not bother to turn up in Leinster House last Friday. I don't blame them. They reckoned that their time would be better employed in holding constituency clinics and seeking favours (not too many of these on offer nowadays) for their supporters.
The scary thing is that they are right. They have nothing more useful to do in the Dail. The life of a powerless backbencher, especially a powerless government backbencher, offers little in the way of job satisfaction. That was true in the boom. It is still true in a crisis which few of them can understand.
Yet there are important things which they do understand, and which would have made an enormous difference to Irish life if only they had been handled in the right way at the right time.
Under the surface of the protests about septic tanks, turf-cutting and so forth lies a real issue, the perception that rural Ireland (meaning, mostly, small-town Ireland) is getting a raw deal and that a "traditional way of life" is under threat.
One example. Some towns, usually the bigger ones, thrived in the boom and will survive the crash. Others began to decay even in a time of prosperity. A plan was mooted to revitalise crumbling areas in medium-sized towns. Instead, we got on the one hand isolated houses, all with septic tanks, and on the other hand, ghost estates. We can make a start -- no more than a start -- on fixing that.
There are numerous other ways in which even a penniless government can improve the quality of rural and small-town life; numerous issues on which backbenchers can make a useful contribution. But this will not happen in the absence of parliamentary democracy -- and real local democracy, not just amalgamating councils.
A year ago, these issues were simply not debated. It's not too late to debate them now.
The victors of 2011 would take over a country close to ruin. They are sadder than in 2011, but are they wiser?
If they are wise, they will not sit back in the comfort zone of a 110-seat majority. They will start planning, not for the impossible -- the things they vainly hoped to do -- but for the possible.
There's still plenty of it.
- James Downey
Irish Independent
