Coalition must wrap it up soon and call the off

ANY lingering doubts about a pre summer general election disappeared with the publication of an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll…

ANY lingering doubts about a pre summer general election disappeared with the publication of an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll which showed a surge of supports for the Government parties.

With the tide flowing strongly bin their favour, the three party leaders have virtually no option but to complete outstanding Dail business and call an election. The signal for the "off" may not be given for three or four weeks, because of various scheduled events, but backbenchers believe an election in the last weeks of May is now a racing certainty.

Publication of the poll findings on Wednesday sent Fine Gael officials into paroxysms of delight. Support for the party had hit a seven year high; John Bruton had never been more popular and the Government's satisfaction rating was exceptional.

Labour and Democratic Left also had reason to be pleased as their support in Dublin rose by three points each. Not only that for the first time in almost 30 years there was a prospect of an outgoing government being returned.

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The news was bad for Fianna Fail. In Dublin, support for the party dropped by eight points to 36 per cent, largely as a result of erosion in middle class support. And while the blip might be temporary, officials worried about a repeat of 1992 and 1994 when the party's support in the capital went into freefall. There was another cause for concern: not only is Dublin the most volatile electoral region but voting trends invariable surface there first.

Relief was the strongest emotion within the Progressive Democrats. Having been pinned back to five per cent in an earlier Sunday Tribune opinion poll, the party welcomed the 8 per cent in the Irish Times/MRBI poll as a good development.

There was some positive news for the Opposition parties. In spite of a slippage in support, a Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats government remained the outcomes most favoured by the electorate. And the Opposition parties were determined to keep it that way. Then the water issue struck.

For weeks now, the PDs have been trying to wriggle off the public spending hook that Bobby Molloy impaled them on. In the heat of the group water scheme campaign, the Galway West deputy - unilaterally - committed his party to subsidising local water schemes to the tune of £23 million. The Dublin leadership was not amused. How could the party preach fiscal rectitude with any credibility in such circumstances? The promised cheque had to be torn up.

Last week, a statement in Mr Molloy's name began the process. It changed the question. Rather than consider the equity of water charges, it addressed their cost. Adding EU funding, national improvement grants and the abolition of charges together and multiplying them by 10, the Progressive Democrats concluded the decade's £980 million water costs would eventually have to be paid by the taxpayer. It was hardly a fresh insight. But it allowed the party to regain the high fiscal ground.

Mary Harney went on RTE to condemn the practice of vote buying. And when she was charged with Mr Molloy's efforts, she gently hung him out to dry. In the words of Michael McDowell, the party had to be radical or redundant. And so she spoke of the need to "revisit" the issue in government. Domestic water should not be provided free, she said, while declining to say how, or in what circumstances, it might be charged for by local authorities.

Brendan Howlin condemned the figures used as "bogus" and said Ms Harney had got her sums wrong. As for metering water, a spokesman said this option had been rejected on cost grounds by KPMG in a recent study on local government funding. If the residential property tax was inequitable - and the PDs had campaigned for its abolition - then so were water charges.

Fianna Fail was appalled. Its prospective junior partner in government had made life unnecessarily difficult. But it clamped the lid on the bubbling pot and held its peace - almost. Out in Ms Harney's constituency of Dublin South West, however, Conor Lenihan smelled blood. The would be Fianna Fail TD suggested the PD leader was out of touch with her constituents and had gaffed badly.

Young Mr Lenihan amused neither Bertie Ahern nor Ms Harney.

After he was silenced, Noel Dempsey tried to buy time.

Fianna Fail would deal comprehensively with local government funding in a document to be released at the party's ardfheis in a few weeks time, he said.

The attempt to bury the issue didn't work. John Bruton trundled in and demanded to know where Fianna Fail stood on the issue.

Last night, Fianna Fail was still hanging tough. But the prospect of having media attention on water charges submerge the launch of the party's policy on local government and impact negatively on the ardfheis, may become unbearable. Even if it means opening up a temporary gap between Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats, backbenchers want clarity.