Fianna Fáil has had a disastrous start to its campaign. But its rivals fear being trampled by 'the elephant in the corner' of Bertie Ahern's finances, writes Stephen Collins
The astonishing first week of the election campaign to the 30th Dáil is ending as it began, with Fianna Fáil apparently drifting rudderless, the crew at each other's throats and nobody in clear command. It is reminiscent of Albert Reynolds' disastrous campaign in 1992, only this time it promises to be far worse, unless somebody can get a grip on the strategy.
What makes it all completely mystifying is that Bertie Ahern created the shambles by choosing the worst possible moment to dissolve the Dáil. If he had gone a couple of weeks earlier, as many of his own TDs had been expecting, it might all have been so different.
Instead the Taoiseach made the baffling decision to go the Áras to seek the President's permission for a dissolution early last Sunday. The midnight phone-around to alert the media created a peculiar sense of unease from the beginning, but it was the press conference to launch the campaign later in the morning that was truly baffling.
Everybody expected the campaign launch at Treasury Buildings to be a typically upbeat, confident display of Fianna Fáil power. The old crew, who had come within an ace of pulling off an overall majority in 2002, were on hand. The legendary PJ Mara was back as director of elections and Séamus Brennan, who had masterminded one of the biggest Fianna Fáil landslides in history in 1977, was there in a central role.
An assorted crew of press officers, lobbyists and Government advisers, on unpaid leave for the campaign, were also there on that bright, sunny Sunday and seemed not to have a care in the world. They were going to fight the election on the Government's economic record and felt that if they kept the debate focused there they couldn't be beaten.
The media were ushered into the large briefing room with the election slogan, "Now, the Next Steps", in big letters on the backdrop. The Taoiseach walked in, read a short statement and then walked out again. There were no questions, no answers and no explanation for the press conference that wasn't. Bryan O'Brien's photograph of the Taoiseach leaving the stage on the front page of The Irish Times the following morning summed it up.
That jaw-dropping moment set the tone for the party's campaign and it didn't get better. The latest disclosures about the Taoiseach's financial affairs in a Sunday newspaper was probably the reason for the walk-off. With the decision of the Mahon tribunal the following day to suspend plans for public hearings, Ahern's finances took centre stage.
The Taoiseach tried to explain it all later by saying he had not planned to call the election on Sunday but had changed his plans in order to get the President to sign the dissolution order. That is hard to credit because Ahern had long known that the President was due to leave for the US on Sunday morning. As she pointed out herself during the week, she can leave the country only with the permission of the Government.
Whatever the reason, the opening day of the campaign was a flop. What made it so incomprehensible and unnerving for his party was that it was completely of the Taoiseach's own making. He knew what the tribunal was investigating and he had all the time in the world to pick the dissolution day.
That shambolic opening day set the pattern for the week. The Taoiseach's personal finances dominated media coverage of his campaign and, while he tried to stick to the mantra that it was "a matter for the tribunal", the questions just wouldn't go away.
Fianna Fáil Ministers did try to get the focus on to the economy at the daily campaign briefing but it seemed as if the Taoiseach's problems had spooked the entire effort. On Tuesday Minister for Finance Brian Cowen made a tongue-in-cheek remark about slowly roasting the Opposition on the barbie, but it came across to the public as menacing.
Séamus Brennan announced that Fianna Fáil would introduce an SSIA-type pension savings plan only to have it effectively disowned the following day by Cowen, who said that no budgetary provision had been made for it and what was proposed was a discussions with the social partners about the possibility of a plan.
Then on Thursday came the launch of the Fianna Fáil manifesto. Inevitably it was dominated by the Taoiseach's personal finances but Ministers hoped that Ahern's calmness in the face of fire would finally put the issue to rest. Of course it didn't, as further revelations emerged yesterday and more can be expected over the weekend.
Even the Fianna Fáil U-turn on stamp duty and a mortgage interest relief package could not switch the focus of debate away from the Taoiseach. All his weary colleagues could hope for at the end of the week was that public sympathy might turn in his favour. Whatever happens next, the Fianna Fáil campaign has a lot of catching up to do.
Even leaving the tribunal issues and mistakes out of the equation, there is something stale about the campaign. The set-piece morning press conferences, with the Ministers in their suits sitting behind a platform in a dark room giving their views about the state of the economy, just haven't worked. The inevitable rows in the camp about how to turn it around need to be sorted out fast, before they make things even worse.
By contrast Fine Gael had a dream start. It was the exact reverse of the 2002 catastrophe in which the party lost almost half its seats. This time around the party was ready and its quick-moving, adaptable campaign is a marked contrast to Fianna Fáil's. Instead of traditional press conferences Fine Gael has gone for open-air events which are essentially publicity stunts designed to focus on their core issue, the state of public services.
Enda Kenny has kept on the move, stopping for occasional soundbites. Health spokesman Liam Twomey presided over a typical Fine Gael event at the top of Dublin's Grafton Street on Wednesday afternoon. Wearing his doctor's coat, he posed for the cameras with three hospital beds, occupied by Fine Gael activists acting as patients.
Of course it was a stunt, but it attracted four camera crews and a number of radio reporters who interviewed Dr Twomey about the state of the health service. It generated far more media coverage than a staid press conference at the party's election headquarters and it is the pattern that Fine Gael intends to follow.
"Our strategy was to get out quick with a strong, energetic and confident campaign," says its director of elections Frank Flannery. "Our contract for a better Ireland was in place and we wanted to focus the campaign on the quality of public services." He is delighted at the performance of his party leader in the first week. "Enda has had a rip-roaring start. We are all buoyed up by it." The next two weeks will be the real test for Mr Kenny. Nobody would have believed five years ago that he could have achieved what he has to date, and put Fine Gael in with a real chance of taking power after an election for the first time since 1982.
Having landed himself in such a great position the pressure will now come on with a vengeance as a wounded Fianna Fáil hits back and the voters look closely at the Fine Gael leader to see if he has what it takes to be taoiseach.
Fine Gael strategists are actually worried at the potential of the payments controversy to put their campaign off course. "We don't want this campaign to be overshadowed by extraneous and destabilising issues. It is the complicating factor," said Flannery.
Pat Rabbitte's chief of staff, Adrian Langan, shares the concern. "The payments issue is the elephant in the corner and we don't know where it is going to charge." He says he is very happy with the campaign to date and believes that Labour is getting its message across and that Rabbitte is showing just how capable he is in media interviews.
Labour candidates are expressing their happiness with how things are going on the ground but some of them are concerned that if the swing to Fine Gael gets too strong it could leave them stranded. They sense a mood among the voters to "get them out" and if that intensifies then Labour could rue the residual ambiguity about its post-election plans.
The sudden onset of coyness back in January about saying what Labour would do in a hung Dáil could come back to bite Rabbitte. It was at odds with the strategy of building an alliance for an alternative government with Kenny and it could leave Labour isolated if the public mood runs strongly in favour of Fine Gael as the only party that definitely will not put Fianna Fáil back in office.
To achieve power the alternative government needs Fine Gael to do very well but it also requires a good performance from Labour. If the second prong of the alliance does not perform then the whole strategy could fail.
The junior partner in the existing Government has also had a difficult time in the first week trying to get its message across in the storm over the Ahern payments. The PDs' election launch last Sunday was overshadowed by the dissolution of the Dáil and Tánaiste Michael McDowell was taken aback when the payments issue first reared its head that morning.
As the week went on he backed the Taoiseach but then yesterday he moved to put as much distance between himself and Ahern as he could. The only conclusion is that the PDs are getting an anti-Fianna Fáil message on the doorstep and feel the need to cut loose. In the past the PDs have done well out of Fine Gael weakness. Whether they could capitalise on a declining Fianna Fáil is another question.
An issue the PDs could turn to their advantage is the nurses' dispute. While there is a great deal of natural public sympathy for the nurses, the fact is that if they get a 35-hour week and more pay then the same terms and conditions will apply right across the public service. Hard-working, poorly-paid private-sector workers, who will have to subsidise better pay and shorter hours for the public service, represent a constituency that nobody is speaking for. If the PDs could articulate a clear appeal to them they might be on to a winner.
Before it started it was widely perceived that in this election the Greens would see their hour come round at last. So far they have had a solid campaign with an impressive and prudent economic policy document followed by their full manifesto yesterday.
The danger for the Greens is that if the election crystallises around a mood to put Fianna Fáil out of office they could be swamped. The party has very deliberately kept its coalition options open and while its first preference would be to back a Fine Gael-Labour coalition it has also made it clear that it would be prepared to put Fianna Fáil back into office if the numbers were right. That policy choice, which was made at a party conference, could prove to be a drag on the party's potential vote.
Sinn Féin might also be in the market for a deal with a weakened Fianna Fáil, although Mr Ahern continues to rule out that prospect. The breakthrough in the North has clearly helped Sinn Féin and the party has put itself in a strong position to suck up a segment of the Fianna Fáil vote. The Sinn Féin campaign will get to full throttle only after the Northern executive is set up next Tuesday but it will be a formidable operation.
Most election campaigns take on a pattern only after a week or 10 days and there is plenty of time left for this one to change shape. Fighting the tide, though, is always difficult, as Fine Gael found out in 2002 and Fianna Fáil found in 1992.
Riding it poses its own challenge. Enda Kenny, the former school teacher, will be wondering this weekend if Shakespeare's line, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," will this time apply to him.