Deasy and McGuinness can't sink or save FG

It is only in the media echo chamber that is the early January political silly season that the utterances of an opposition backbencher - even a loudmouthed one - could have achieved the levels of attention which Fine Gael's John Deasy attracted last week. The Waterford TD's suggestion that Kenny should be challenged for the leadership if the party is not in government was the last thing Fine Gael needed just as it was launching a new poster campaign.

Deasy has since claimed that the controversy arose inadvertently. He had simply, he says, given a straight answer to a question from an interviewer on his local radio station. However, by subsequently making himself available to repeat the remarks in pieces to camera for television, Deasy gave the controversy oxygen on the national political stage. Somewhat inevitably, a media pack scavenging around for stories on quiet news days pounced on what he had to say.

Some overexcited commentators have suggested that the hullabaloo caused by Deasy and by Damien English TD's clumsy follow- up has delivered a damaging blow to Kenny and Fine Gael, coming as it does so close to the election.

On the other hand, others have suggested that the episode may actually have worked to Kenny's benefit by engendering some public sympathy for him. It did neither. The long-term impact of this story, if any, will be very little one way or the other.

It will be more interesting to assess the impact of this week's Fine Gael story. After some prevarication, the party's MEP Mairéad McGuinness has decided to contest the general election in the constituency of Louth. Her announcement is a positive one for the party, not least because it refutes suggestions from some that her apparent reluctance to contest the election was indicative of a lack of confidence either in her own prospects of winning a Dáil seat or in Fine Gael's prospect of being in government after the election.

McGuinness has many skills. A former journalist she is an experienced and talented media performer. In politics, as in her former life, she has shown a particular skill at handling agriculture-related issues. She was very impressive some months ago in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight, competently dealing with the implication for agriculture of proposals advanced by European Commissioner Peter Mandelson in the most recent Gatt negotiations.

However, outside the agriculture brief McGuinness has been less surefooted. Since her victory in the European election in 2004 she has been put out by Fine Gael on a number of programmes to debate domestic political issues - with mixed results.

Whatever about her effectiveness in the European Parliament, sometimes her input on topical controversies here in Ireland has been something akin to those which Gerry Adams gives when asked about issues other than the Northern peace process. Her contributions have usually been cleverly worded and articulate sounding but essentially vague and lacking in depth.

The only reason why Fine Gael strategists would be enabling a McGuinness run for the Dáil in Louth is because they believe the party can win two seats there.

It could be possible, but most of the indicators are against it. In 2002 Fine Gael polled just 20 per cent in Louth, which equates to one quota. In 1997 the party won 28 per cent and in 1992 it won 24 per cent. Fine Gael's first preference vote will have to grow to somewhere touching 35 per cent in order to win two seats. Even allowing for whatever appeal McGuinness may have for those who have not previously voted for Fine Gael, that is a very tall order indeed.

Fianna Fáil has had more than two Dáil quotas in Louth in the last four elections and is likely therefore to hold its two seats. In 2002 the Sinn Féin TD in this constituency, Arthur Morgan, had three-quarters of a quota in first preferences. At that time Sinn Féin's percentage in national polls was half what it is currently and there is no reason to believe its vote in Louth has slipped.

McGuinness proved most of us pundits wrong in the 2004 European election when she topped the poll in the East constituency and won a seat beside rather than instead of her party colleague, Avril Doyle.

However, as Dana Rosemary Scallan learned in Galway West in 2002 (where she "lost her deposit"), the capacity to get elected to the European Parliament does not necessarily narrow down to winning a seat in an individual Dáil constituency. Although McGuinness is from Louth, she may not be able to overcome the localised considerations and the loyalties to sitting TDs which come into play in a Dáil election.

Even with an increase in their percentage vote share in the order of the mid-30s, Fine Gael is far from guaranteed a second seat in Louth especially since it is running three candidates in this four-seater.

The other two candidates are Dundalk- based councillor Jim D'Arcy (whom it is said refused to step down to make way for McGuinness) and the party's sitting TD, Fergus O'Dowd. Even if McGuinness displays the same appeal in Louth in 2007 as she did throughout Leinster in 2004, it is more likely that she will win O'Dowd's seat rather than win an additional seat for Fine Gael.

O'Dowd is entitled to feel aggrieved at this scenario. He has been a relatively impressive and hard-working performer on what has been a very lacklustre Fine Gael front bench. Apart from the party's leader and deputy leader, he has been the most effective Fine Gael politician on many issues in recent months.

Deasy alone cannot destroy Fine Gael's prospects in the forthcoming election. McGuinness alone cannot save them. Overall, Fine Gael has come out of the first couple of weeks of 2007 no better or no worse off than it was at the end of last year.

With only about 18 weeks before the likely election date, however, the party needs more good weeks.