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.