Ahern will have much to ponder on his summer break

Josh Lyman, campaign manager for the presidential candidate Mathew Santos in the television drama West Wing, makes the point at one strategy meeting that although people think election campaigns are about competing answers to the questions, they are not - elections are about a competition for the question itself.

The candidate or party who can get an election contest on to their issues is best positioned to win.

Our election is almost a year away, but already it is clear that the political parties are involved in a contest for the question. Both sides set out their stalls in the Dáil private members' debate this week. The Labour and Fine Gael motion focused on issues of Government incompetence, citing in particular problems in accident and emergency, rising crime, enduring social inequalities and incidents of wastage of public money.

It's a familiar litany, which will be repeated often by the Opposition in the coming months.

The Government's amendment focused on its wider economic achievement, listing employment-creation and tax reform and then itemising a series of social and education initiatives, which the Government wants to remind voters have been funded from the proceeds of the boom.

Cabinet meetings are continuing and Dáil committees are still sitting in July, and there are the usual early summer rituals such as the Galway Races, but politics will gradually get quieter for the summer. In August, the Taoiseach and most of his Ministers will take a proper break and get the head space to do some private strategic thinking.

Bertie Ahern uses his holidays well. This will be his tenth summer as Taoiseach. As he walks the beaches of Kerry or wherever he chooses to spend his August, his thoughts will inevitably turn to whether he will be in the same job this time next year and to devising a strategy to ensure that he is.

Bertie Ahern has been in a similar position before. His fourth summer as Taoiseach in 2000 was not a comfortable one. It was dominated by the controversy over the appointment of Hugh O'Flaherty to the European Investment Bank. It was Ahern himself who devised the strategy to repair the damage that controversy caused. This involved him acknowledging that the Government had "taken a hit" on the issue and then making a particular effort to control the Government's message in the months that followed and to ensuring an error-free budget that December.

These steps, together with a competent management of the foot-and-mouth crisis the following spring, enabled Fianna Fáil to claw its way back to its original support levels, setting it on course for re-election in 2002.

Bertie Ahern's eighth summer as Taoiseach was even more uncomfortable. In June 2004, Fianna Fáil had its worst election result ever after voters vented their considerable annoyance with the Government on the party's candidates in the local and European elections.

Ahern got the message, however, and he quickly embarked on a series of steps which, at least in hindsight, can be seen as a cumulative strategy designed to recover lost support. Within weeks he had leveraged Charlie McCreevy out of the Department of Finance to the European Commission. In early September, the "Inchydoney repositioning" began with Father Seán Healy's address to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party's annual "think-in" in Clonakilty.

Later that same month, Ahern carried out a relatively radical reshuffle of his ministers. Then, in interviews to mark his 10th anniversary as leader of Fianna Fáil, he generated much comment by talking about how he was a "socialist".

There was a follow-up when the new Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, targeted tax cuts at the lower-paid in his December 2004 budget and detailed a substantial funding package for disability services. Again the strategy worked, at least initially, and the Government's numbers in the first opinion polls of 2005 were greatly improved.

Now, however, the Government is in the poll doldrums again. Whatever reservations one might have about the accuracy of some of the opinion polls, the cumulative data now available is extensive enough to conclude that Fianna Fáil has been stuck at or below 35 per cent for a while.

This is a far cry from the 41.5 per cent the party polled in the 2002 election. By comparison, Fine Gael has improved its position significantly.

Again it is Bertie Ahern who will have to devise and implement the strategy to recover the lost ground. This time his task is more complex. Fianna Fáil is starting from a lower base and the timescale for recovery is shorter.

A number of elements of a political recovery strategy will suggest themselves to the Taoiseach. Firstly, he is likely to intensify his schedule of constituency tours. Expect to see Bertie Ahern visit a town near you in September. As well as boosting morale, these visits generate local newspaper and radio interviews, where the Taoiseach feels he gets a better opportunity to communicate his message.

Ahern will also need to focus on the management structures needed to bring greater cohesion to his Government and to his party's election campaign for the 10 or 11 months that remain.

The party's manifesto will have to be eye-catching, but no dramatic shift in policy is required. What is required is an improvement in how the Government does things and in how it communicates what it is doing. The Government's mistakes are easily remembered; its achievements are less clear in voters' minds. Too much of its good news is not getting across because of clumsy controversies.

As of now, Bertie Ahern is still more likely than not to be in the driving seat for government-formation this time next year. The mountain that the Opposition has to climb in seat gains has not gone away.

Ahern will also know that as the election gets closer the question will not just be about the competence and policies of the Government. It will also be about the relative competence and policies of the alternative.