Calm after the Storm
Deaglán de Bréadún
The talks have begun and it looks like a fairly smooth transition to a coalition. Will there be a standoff over the Finance portfolio? Michael Noonan has had a great run in recent months but why would anyone want the job in the current climate?
Looks like a Labour conference on Sunday next to sign off on the coalition deal. Given the tenor of the party’s campagn at the end for “fair and balanced government”, the activists can hardly turn around now and reject the offer put before them.
We’ll never know, or not for a few years at least, what a single-party FG government would have been like. It’s a bit like wondering, “What happens if I press this button?”
From a right-of-centre viewpoint, the coalition means key decisions are going to be fudged. The harsh medicine that the Right are always prescribing will now be diluted.
Mary O’Rourke was critical on radio of those who left the sinking ship of Fianna Fail - although she didn’t use that terminology. Mind you, the real problem for her was that there were three FF candidates in Longford-Westmeath.
FF, the Ulster Unionist Party, to a lesser extent the SDLP, the Progressive Democrats all these powerful political forces have fallen on difficult times or, in the case of the PDs, just disappeared. Re-invention badly needed, but how? Suggestions on a postcard please …
