Coalition parties ready for defining Dail term

NEXT Wednesday, a newly renovated Leinster House will echo to the post holiday banter of returning TDs as they evaluate the political situation and assess their prospects for re election in 1997.

It's a worrying time for Dail members. For they know the attrition rate will be great in the coming contest. Old age, retirements and defeats culled almost one in four of the TDs who made up the last Dail.

The whiff of political blood in the air adds a certain frisson to the proceedings. And the multi faceted nature of the struggle to survive, with internal party battles exceeding all others in terms of ferocity, adds a dark dimension. The phrase "nature red in tooth and claw" has a real resonance in politics.

Before the summer recess, Fianna Fail did very well in setting an election agenda for the Government. Crime, drugs and prisons became the pivot around which all politics rotated in the aftermath of Veronica Guerin's murder. Unemployment was a vote getter, while the BSE crisis and the stalled Northern Ireland talks offered interesting prospects.

John O'Donoghue lambasted Nora Owen for weeks over administrative, policing and prison failures and caused John Bruton to recall the Dail in July. Mary Harney added to the Taoiseach's woes by suggesting that the Government had gone soft on crime.

It was a bad time for the Coalition. But the opposition parties may have peaked too soon.

When the Dail resumes on Wednesday, the Minister for Justice will be motoring in third gear, with a range of tough anti drugs measures already in place, while six Bills of varying severity and complexity are nearing completion. They deal with issues ranging from criminal justice to sexual offences, the misuse of drugs, criminal assets, civil liability and family law.

The Government is also committed to holding a referendum on bail in November and Mrs Owen hopes to resolve at least one long running problem within the police through the Garda Siochana Bill.

Whatever difficulties the future throws up, the Minister is well prepared to fight her political corner in terms of commitment and delivery.

Mervyn Taylor will spread a soothing balm over the labour market when he introduces his Employment Equality Bill, designed to prevent discrimination at work on the basis of ethnic origin, disability or sexual orientation. An accompanying Equal Status Bill is designed to prevent similar discrimination in public houses and in the services industry.

Passage of the Divorce Bill will mark the completion of a long running social/liberal agenda. Other Labour Party projects, involving the replacement of business donations to political parties by State funding and the introduction of a Freedom of Information Bill, are under way. A referendum to relax Cabinet confidentiality is being considered.

Fine Gael has two main political objectives to run a high profile bail referendum campaign in November and to choose half of its candidates by Christmas. It recognises the BSE threat to its farming vote but feels the general buoyancy in agricultural incomes will soften the blow.

Bertie Ahern has been courting the farming vote for months, making concerned noises over BSE and bringing front bench Fianna Fail members to rural meetings. The quintessential "Dub" has spent 80 days in the country since January, 1995. But between now and Christmas he will concentrate on Dublin and Cork.

LAW and order will be his theme song, with variations on drugs, prisons, unemployment, taxation, the environment and education.

The Progressive Democrats will be hard on crime and on all versions of social welfare fraud, calling for tax reforms and reductions in spending.

Against this backdrop of pre election in fighting, the Government parties will be attempting to hold their defensive shape. At the same time, they have to oversee Ireland's EU presidency, negotiate a new national wage agreement, facilitate progress in the multi party talks and design a Budget for 1997.

Work is already well advanced on the production of next year's Estimates, which will provide a taste of things to come. Ireland's membership of EMU will be predicated on Government spending, inflation and the national debt, and 1997 will be a benchmark year.

Events in Northern Ireland may accelerate in the aftermath of the US presidential elections in November. But, even if the looming British and Irish elections delay progress on arms decommissioning, a resumed IRA ceasefire and the establishment - of all party talks, the complex issues involved will demand a great deal of Government attention. Coming on top of the EU presidency workload, Dick Spring and John Bruton will be run ragged.

One of the most important tests of the rainbow coalition will come during autumn negotiations with trade unions and employers on a new national wage agreement. Expensive tax concessions will be required if wage demands and inflation are to be controlled.

The Government can afford to be generous. The Exchequer is awash with money. Senior officials are talking about achieving "the first really substantial budget surplus since the early 1970s". It's just a matter of balancing the demands of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left.

With all that money at his disposal, Ruairi Quinn has two rules to follow reward, but don't unsettle, the PAYE sector through excessive tax cuts; and keep the Government parties together.

One Government source admitted: "The political reality is that when the Budget is finished the momentum for an election is going to grow."

But there is no obvious appetite within the Coalition for the snap election that Fianna Fail fears may come in February. Instead, both the Labour Party and Fine Gael are arranging annual conferences for late April and early May. Democratic Left may hold its bash in April.

It's a racing certainty that an election will be held in late May or early June. But, between now and Christmas, events within and outside the Dail will decide the shape, and perhaps the composition, of the next government.