INSIDE POLITICS:As long as Kenny and his colleagues provide decisive leadership they can rely on a degree of public indulgence, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
LIFE ON the Government benches has come as a shock to many Fine Gael and Labour TDs who have had to make a sudden switch from the easy rhetoric of opposition to the responsibilities of power.
It is not just the newly elected TDs who have had to come to terms with reality in double-quick time. The two parties have spent so long in opposition that even some senior figures were ill-prepared for the kind of decisions they have had to make already.
The facts of life on the banking crisis and the EU–IMF bailout should not have come as a surprise to anybody with a bit of political wit but some Ministers seem to have been gobsmacked when the obvious reality began to dawn that “burning the bondholders” or unilaterally changing the bailout terms was simply not feasible.
The late Séamus Brennan’s remark to the Greens in 2007 that “you’re playing senior hurling now, lads” applies with even more force to Fine Gael and Labour in 2011.
While it has had to ditch some of the easy promises of opposition, the Government still has one huge advantage. It was not responsible for creating the appalling economic and financial crisis that has brought the country to its knees. As long as Enda Kenny and his colleagues provide decisive leadership they should be able to rely on a degree of public indulgence. What has been impressive about the Coalition is the way it has got down to business from day one. If the recapitalisation of the banks actually works this time, they will have put in one of the key foundation stones for economic recovery.
It is going to be a very long road, however, and they will have to show the same determination in getting the public finances under control. That means taking unpopular decisions that will be even more unpalatable than the banking U-turn because the impact will be felt immediately by real people.
The sudden descent of the 2,300-page Moriarty tribunal report on the head of the new Government had the capacity to cause all sorts of problems. However, Kenny and his colleagues handled it well and refused to get bogged down in an acrimonious rerun of an outdated controversy that has nothing to do with solving the country’s current problems.
By contrast, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin displayed poor judgment in dealing with his first major controversy as leader of the Opposition. He tried to take up with the same petulant, hectoring style his party displayed when they were in opposition in the 1990s, as if the past 14 years and the economic catastrophe his Fianna Fáil government presided over had never occurred. By contrast his deputy leader and finance spokesman Brian Lenihan responded with dignity and forbearance to the bank recapitalisation programme in which the Coalition parties effectively abandoned the policy they had pursued in opposition. He gave the mildest of “I told you so” to Michael Noonan as he endorsed the Government’s approach.
Another politician who has come well out of the past week is the Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett. He has stamped his authority on the Dáil and kept the potentially difficult debate on the Moriarty tribunal under tight control. He also showed a willingness to assert the authority of the Dáil and defend the rights of TDs in his dealings with the Government and Opposition leaders. For instance, on Thursday morning when the Government and the Opposition groups had decided to pass a motion of censure on Michael Lowry without debate, Barrett intervened. “As Ceann Comhairle, I feel there is an obligation on the House to ensure the protection of the rights of any member to be heard, where he or she may be subject to a motion of censure by the House,” said Barrett. Socialist TD Joe Higgins, who had been highly critical of Lowry in the debate, backed Barrett saying the issue was the right of any member to defend himself or herself.
The intemperate nature of the attacks on Lowry by much of the media and some of his Dáil colleagues led to a sense of uneasiness. The Moriarty tribunal findings certainly were damning but the tribunal has not exactly covered itself in glory by the inordinate length of time it has taken and enormity of the fees paid to its lawyers. More seriously, it is open to the allegation it sought to suppress crucial evidence contained in a legal opinion in the Attorney General’s office that did not fit its case against Lowry and Denis O’Brien.
While there is little doubt Lowry had an inappropriate relationship with O’Brien, the tribunal joined a lot of dots to come up with the conclusion that the former minister tampered with the award of the mobile phone licence. It ignored the evidence of Michael Andersen, the Danish consultant, who oversaw the awarding of the licence and who insisted Lowry did not feature as part of the competition process.
The civil servants in the project team who recommended the award and the cabinet subcommittee composed of then taoiseach John Bruton, tánaiste Dick Spring, Democratic Left leader Proinsias De Rossa and minister for finance Ruairí Quinn, who made the final decision, have all insisted Lowry did not influence the outcome.
While the tribunal was entitled to discount all that evidence, its report should be taken for what it is: an opinion. On the basis of that opinion, Lowry has questions to answer but the scale of the vilification to which he has been subjected by the tribunal, the media and many of his Dáil colleagues is hard to justify.
Further light may be cast by court cases in the years ahead; in the meantime, the fairest way of making a judgment on the report is to echo former Chinese prime minister Chou En Lai who, when asked in 1972 to assess the impact of the French Revolution, replied: “It’s too early to tell.”