Death of Fianna Fáil

Was 2011 the beginning of the end for Fianna Fáil?

All gone now. Is the party itself to follow.

Since Fianna Fáil first entered Government in 1932 it has been the largest political party in Ireland. That is until the General Election of 2011, when it became the third largest party and was nearly beaten into fourth place by Sinn Féin.

Since the foundation of the modern Irish state in 1922, Fianna Fáil has been in power for a total of 61 years. However, the unthinkable now seems possible that Fianna Fáil may never be in power again. The scale of the defeat in 2011 was so enormous and the negative feeling towards them so profound that the road to recovery could prove to be impossible. Having said that very few political commentators see that as a likelihood, yet.

Fianna Fáil has always been a party of the Grassroots, organising itself at local level in every Irish townland and parish. The legendary cumainn structure of local branches has sustained Fianna Fáil throughout its history. Many of these local groups are now dysfunctional or defunct. Fianna Fáil has also seen its local authority representation shrink from 382 to 302 and to 218 in recent council elections. Any further slippage in that figure could prove to be fatal.

The reasons for Fianna Fáil’s fall from grace are many. Its links to a declining catholic church have chipped away at its power base. Internal conflicts between its various different factions have caused division within. Various tribunals linking senior Fianna Fáil politicians with corruption have been enormously damaging. The final straw for the public though was its handling of the economic collapse following the Celtic Tiger era that came to an abrupt halt in 2007. The near collapse of the banks was followed by a series of austere budgets and by the arrival of the Troika (the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission) who were called in to bail out Ireland financially.

During this time the house building industry collapsed and this led to rapidly rising unemployment, a massive budget deficit, a collapse in tax revenue and a meltdown in business confidence. The Fianna Fáil organisation has suffered badly as it has seen its own income dry up to a much greater extent than the country at large. With its loss of power and influence, many of its former financial backers have turned their backs on Fianna Fáil. The days of the Galway tent have gone forever.

Fianna Fáil who traditionally relied on the civil service to provide it with key policies in the areas of finance, health, education, etc. no longer has full access to this information. Its longest spell out of power since 1932 was just over 4 years. Now it faces a prolonged spell in opposition. It will be interesting to see how the party handles this.

The other major difficulty faced by Fianna Fáil is that it currently has no elected TD’s in Dublin. A few years ago, almost all political commentators would have laughed at this suggestion. Now Irelands’ capital city has no senior public representatives from Fianna Fáil for the first time since they came to power.

Fianna Fáil can of course come back. It is quite possible that it will regain a considerable amount of the ground it has lost very quickly. As the present Fine Gael/Labour government inevitably becomes less and less popular due to the chronic lack of money in the country and the necessity to pile on the pain to keep the public finances in order, Fianna Fáil may be able to position itself as the only credible alternative. This very much depends on a few things including;

1. How Sinn Féin manages itself over the coming years.
2. Whether Fianna Fáil can avoid internal conflict.
3. Whether new political alignments can emerge.
4. A good local election result in 2014.
5. How the economic situation develops to minimise the unpopularity of Fine Gael and Labour.
6. Can Fianna Fáil put the scandals and failures of the past behind them?
7. Do the Irish public really want Fianna Fáil to re-emerge?

As already discussed, it is also possible that the party founded by Eamon de Valera in 1926 may cease to exist. This will depend on some of the following;

1.       Internal conflict within Fianna Fáil.

2.       Success by the present Government in turning around the economy and creating employment.

3.       A more viable opposition than Fianna Fáil emerging.

4.       The public continuing to blame Fianna Fáil for wrecking the economy.

5.       Failure to raise sufficient funds to mount credible election campaigns.

6.       Further erosion of its support base at a local level.

7.       Failure to get back into Government before 2020.

Despite the huge role that Fianna Fáil has played in the development of the Irish state, there are now very many people in Ireland who would be delighted to see them disappear. The strength of this sentiment is clearly far greater than for any other Irish political party. However, there are families in Ireland who still see Fianna Fáil as part of their very makeup. While they still have a fairly solid support base, they must avoid the dangers of Myopia if they are to avoid the fate of John Redmond and the Irish Party who were routed by Sinn Féin in 1918. 

Death of the Greens

The Greens leaving Government

The Greens are the only organically grown political party in Ireland since the early days of statehood to gain enough seats to participate in Government. Unlike the PD’s who were a breakaway group from other Irish parties, their political affiliation is to European politics. Ironically the Irish Greens came to prominence as a result of their opposition to EU treaties such as Amsterdam and Nice.

In 2007 the Greens entered a Government cobbled together by Bertie Ahern in coalition with Fianna Fáil and the PD’s. The new Green party leader John Gormley had launched a stinging attack on Bertie Ahern before the election in a speech entitled “Planet Bertie”. He had also been very critical of PD leader Michael McDowell in the run up to that election.

The Greens are not seen to have achieved any major success in Government other than the implementation of new taxes such as the carbon tax. Headline opposition to campaigns such as Shannon, Rossport and Tara went by the wayside as did their opposition to EU treaties. The most disappointing aspect of the Greens involvement in Government was the failure to achieve any significant political reform. Projects such as the directly elected Mayor of Dublin and the proposed banning of corporate donations were not carried through.

Some would say that rumours of the demise of the Greens in Ireland are greatly exaggerated as the party is still in existence. However, with all national representatives turfed out by the public in the 2011 general election and the failure of the party to reach the 2% funding target, it will be a long road back. The other problem faced by the Greens is the evaporation of goodwill towards them as they have been blamed along with Fianna Fáil for the economic meltdown that led to Ireland being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund.

The primary reason for the demise of the Greens is that popularity gained as a result of opposition to previous Fianna Fáil and PD governments, to political corruption and to EU referendums is now no longer valid. If the Greens are to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, they will have to completely reinvent themselves.

The political reform agenda espoused by the Greens is still hugely relevant as is the core green agenda relating to protection of the environment and sustainable living. However, there is a very real question as to whether direct involvement in politics is the best way to further these aims.

While the green agenda is not myopic it is not part of mainstream political thinking either. To paraphrase Michael McDowell, the Greens will have to become radical or remain redundant.

Death of the Progressive Democrats

PD leaders, past and past.

The Progressive Democrats were born in 1985 as a result of an on-going feud in Ireland’s largest political party at the time, Fianna Fáil. They were declared officially dead in 2009 after nearly a quarter century as a political party.

The feud was between Dessie O’Malley and Charlie Haughey the leader of Fianna Fáil at the time. Dessie O’Malley founded the PD’s as an ideological party. They believed that Ireland should be more financially liberal and operate with more integrity than Fianna Fáil as led by Haughey. Even though they had some defectors from Fine Gael, the vast majority of the people involved in the new PD party were ex Fianna Failers.

Their main policy planks were privatisation and lower taxes, similar to the policy platform of Margaret Thatcher and the British Conservative party. Dessie O’Malley made many significant speeches over the years. Two of his most noteworthy speeches marked huge compromises. The first was in praise of Charlie Haughey after the PD’s decided to go into coalition with their arch enemies Fianna Fáil. His second was his exaltation of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein when he met him as Minister for Industry and Commerce. They discussed the scheme of export credits to enable beef baron Larry Goodman export large amounts of Irish beef to Iraq. This issue eventually led to Dublin Castle and the so-called beef tribunal which was perhaps a success for the  PD’s.

In the more recent past the PD’s under Mary Harney and Michael McDowell played a huge role in fuelling Ireland’s housing boom. Their philosophy of swapping funds from unpopular income and corporation tax for unsustainable tax revenues generated by the building boom has left a massive black hole in Ireland’s public finances. McDowell who was the last real leader of the PD’s fell on his own sword. His phrase, ‘be radical or redundant’ came back to haunt him as the housing boom ended and the PD’s brand of  politics finally lost its radical veneer.

The key lesson to be learned from the rise and fall of the PD’s is that there is a clear market for a liberal agenda in Irish politics. Their early success clearly demonstrated that, but as they went in a more neo-liberal direction, their popularity waned.

The main reason for the ultimate death of the PD’s is that in the public mind they became indistinguishable from Fianna Fáil, the party they were set up to oppose. Internal battles and sustained attacks in the media by the larger parties, eventually led to fragmentation and electoral defeat. Ironically, many of the politicians who were involved in the PD’s have now been re-elected wearing different hats.

  

Their lasting legacy is that they were the political architects of the major boom and bust cycle formerly known as the Celtic Tiger and latterly known as the Celtic Pussycat. Their introduction of light touch regulation has left Ireland badly exposed in the current political and economic climate. However, to blame the PD’s alone would be grossly unfair. Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were also guilty of embracing and facilitating many of their policies. In the current political analysis the  PD’s are largely being ignored. How they will be judged by history, only time will tell.