OPINION:The reactions of Fine Gael and Labour to Brian Cowen's invitation have been revelatory, writes HARRY McGEE
EFFORTS AT reaching political consensus at times of national economic crisis have had decidedly mixed results in the past.
Perhaps the most salutary case revolves around the 1987 general election.
The woeful state of the public finances was clear in the run-up to the election in March that year. Looked at 23 years later, the numbers seem minuscule. Overall current spending amounted to some £6 billion; and the borrowing requirement was £1.27 billion, about 8 per cent of what’s needed this year. But then it was a much smaller economy with a smaller population. National debt still came to a dizzying 130 per cent of GNP. The economy was experiencing no growth. Then as now public sector pay was seen as a difficulty.
The political remedy to the crisis offered by the main outgoing government party, Fine Gael, was markedly different from that of Fianna Fáil.
Fine Gael cleaved to the severe austerity measures outlined in the coalition’s failed budget. In an act of cynical calculation, Fianna Fáil wholly rejected the analysis underlying the budget, and confidently predicted that a new government under Charlie Haughey with Ray MacSharry as minister for finance could deliver growth of 2.5 per cent that year. The party employed a billboard with a stark slogan: “Health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped.” Haughey and MacSharry, in media appearances, portrayed Fine Gael as “doom and gloom” and consistently used the phrase “boom and bloom” when talking about life under a Fianna Fáil administration.
Of course, once in government, Haughey and MacSharry effected an extraordinary U-turn and implemented what was in effect Fine Gael’s budget – an action described at the time as “grand larceny” by Michael Noonan.
Soon after the change of government, the new Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes made a speech to the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce where he offered his party’s qualified support to the new minority Fianna Fáil government in the national interest. Looked at through the prism of Vulcan logic, it was a reasonable position to adopt. But politically it was a disaster.
The Tallaght Strategy – an act of political responsibility to find consensus for the common good – was devastating electorally for Fine Gael, and doomed Dukes’s leadership. By corollary, Fianna Fáil suffered no major adverse consequences for its old-style politicking and posturing in the run-up to the election.
The Tallaght Strategy has informed political discourse since then but, to be blunt about it, no party has been willing to touch consensus with a barge pole.
But following a week of extraordinary political footwork – some deft, some amazingly clumsy – national consensus may be revived after 20 years of being put into a cryogenic state.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen described the process as a step-by-step one. But the very first step was finding out whether he himself had any interest in the experiment. Or was he more interested in the form not the substance – holding meetings and engaging in a nebulous process of “constructive engagement”?
Fine Gael and Labour quickly recognised the enthusiasm of the Greens for consensus wasn’t shared by Fianna Fáil. And both used Leaders’ Questions on Tuesday to smoke out Cowen. They succeeded – there were smouldering tensions between Cowen and Green Party leader John Gormley over the latter’s unilateral announcement of consensus the week before. Cowen’s annoyance with that had not been smoothed out by Tuesday.
And there the matter would have rested if Cowen had not reflected on the situation and dispatched his own letter to the party leaders, offering in essence what Gormley had offered two days earlier. It was a change of tone, said his spokesman. It was a U-turn, said the Opposition.
Whatever, it completely changed the dynamic. One of the concomitant effects was that it turned the tables and put the stance of the Opposition under intense focus. Sinn Féin had already put itself out of the loop. The reaction of Fine Gael and Labour was revelatory.
Fine Gael signed up immediately. Labour’s response was more complex.
Earlier in the week, it had not stated its position on consensus. But now Cowen’s letter forced it to show its hand. In short, its response was a rejection. Its leader Eamon Gilmore said he didn’t believe in “phoney consensus”. He said a general election was needed, questioned the Government’s mandate to draw up a four-year plan, and would commit his party only to producing its own pre-budget plan.
Critically, he did not exclude the party from the meetings and engagement – though everything points to a party that has already adopted a rigid position merely going through the motions and formalities.
Is Fine Gael signing up to a possible Tallaght Strategy Mark II – a case of history repeating itself? The simple answer is no. The economic crisis is unprecedented, and poses a grave existential threat to the country. Political parties realise that their policies and their promises will come under microscopic scrutiny this time, not just from rivals and the commentariat but from a much more informed (and numerate) electorate.
For Fine Gael, its own constituency expects it to adopt responsible positions. That was borne home to it by its botched stunt to deny Mary Coughlan a Dáil pair several weeks ago. That question is not so critical for Labour. Nonetheless, while the party will be setting out a markedly different solution, it will not be foolish enough to reject an offer to seek mutuality during what is in effect a national emergency.
Can rapprochement be reached? It’s likely the Coalition and the main Opposition parties will agree on the 3 per cent deficit target for 2014; and on the figures that will be supplied by the Department of Finance today (though some may question its projections for growth).
It’s on the pathway to 2014 that the parties will diverge. During the course of the weekend, the major parties have made significant public statements in this regard. And all the evidence is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are not a million miles from each other. In contrast, Labour is unlikely to form part of any accommodation, although leader Eamon Gilmore signalled strongly on Saturday that the party is willing to raise taxes. It is extremely unlikely on the evidence to date, unless there is another dramatic change of heart afoot, that Labour will be a party to a consensus approach.
In a speech in Killarney, Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar signposted his party’s readiness to dole out tough medicine. The IMF’s downbeat assessment that savings of €10.7 billion will be needed was far off the mark, he said. He also said that the party would prioritise cuts over taxes at a ratio of 3:1. That would mean severe hardship in many areas of the public sector. But the party argues it would be less damaging to economic growth.
In a mature observation, Varadkar said that the benefit of an election was that a new regime would have the benefit of a “breathing space” to make tough decisions. No more. It reflected the political reality that eaten bread is soon forgotten, and new administrations – like those of Barack Obama and David Cameron – have a finite time to fix the problem before the electorate turns on them. The Greens are all too aware of this. That said, the party deserves credit for persevering with the consensus initiative in the face of political and media ridicule.
In his speech in Bodenstown yesterday, Cowen also tried to be as generous as possible to the Opposition while still reserving the Government’s constitutional right to introduce the budget.
However, with intense scrutiny from Europe and from the markets, he accepted that “strong signals” need to be sent that the parties are “at one” to achieve their objective.