Progressive Democrats hovering close to extinction

Inside Politics:  Tom Parlon's departure from politics has put the focus on the harsh reality confronting the PDs that the party…

Inside Politics: Tom Parlon's departure from politics has put the focus on the harsh reality confronting the PDs that the party's return to government and the talk of two Seanad seats has served to obscure.

The PDs now need something close to a miracle to avoid extinction, and miracles are a rare commodity in the cruel world of politics.

Exactly 20 years after they broke on to the national stage as a serious political force, the PDs appear to have just run out of options. While they have proved the prophets of doom wrong in the past, things are simply much, much worse this time around.

Long-time members and even some public representatives are dropping out or considering joining other parties. It is not just that the PDs have been reduced to two Dáil seats, the spirit appears to have been knocked out of the party.

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Mary Harney's return to the Department of Health is a courageous attempt to finish the job of reform she started in 2004, but it has all the hallmarks of being a valedictory mission rather than a recipe for rebirth.

She had indicated to colleagues that she does not intend to run for the Dáil again, so unless she changes her mind the party will go into the next election with just one TD.

Going back into government has saved the PDs from having to confront the prospect of immediate dissolution, but only in the short term.

Founder member Paul Mackay was probably right to argue that if they wanted to have any future it was necessary to break the umbilical cord with Fianna Fáil and attempt to rebuild from Opposition, difficult and all as that would have been.

The paradox is that it was Parlon more than anybody else who wedded the PDs to Fianna Fáil before, during and after the election.

The critical moment for the PDs during the campaign, and the one that turned an extremely difficulty situation into disaster, was the crisis over the Taoiseach's finances, and Ahern's initial refusal to offer any explanation.

The issue dominated the first week of the campaign, and it sowed panic in the PDs. Michael McDowell then let it be known that he was thinking of pulling out of government because the implications of leaked documents were so serious.

Mary Harney and Liz O'Donnell are believed to have urged McDowell to take decisive action but on the critical first weekend of the campaign Parlon was emphatic that the party had to stay the course with Fianna Fáil and his view ultimately prevailed.

That decision helped steady frayed nerves in Fianna Fáil, and paved the way for the party's comeback in the second half of the campaign.

"I felt that Tom's own intervention that particular Sunday of the campaign was very important. It did steady the ship," Micheál Martin told Newstalk in recent days.

"Because if things hadn't been steadied on that particular day, the prospect of a Fianna Fáil-PD government would've been undermined significantly; that edifice would've been undone significantly.

"So I think he had a significant role due to his intervention that day in terms of steadying the ship and facilitating a recovery politically from our point of view, not necessarily for the PDs, I expect."

Martin hit the nail on the head on both counts.

Parlon's intervention certainly helped Fianna Fáil on the road back to power, but it was disastrous for the PDs and it almost certainly cost McDowell his Dáil seat.

Whatever decision they took that weekend the PDs would have taken a drubbing, but a last-ditch stand on the fundamental issue of standards in public office might have saved McDowell and even one or two more Dublin PD deputies.

Ironically, Parlon's rush to back Fianna Fáil in the party's hour of need was not reciprocated. Instead he was brutally taken out by his coalition partners in a clinical vote-management exercise. In fact, Parlon received fewer votes from Brian Cowen's enormous surplus than Fine Gael's Olwyn Enright. That says it all.

That is all water under the bridge now, but it leaves the task of rebuilding the PDs an almost impossible one.

There are three main problems. The first is finding a leader who can pull the party back from oblivion, the second is how that can be done given that the party's financial base will be slashed, and the third, and most important point of all, is what the party stands for any longer.

On the leadership issue, the best option would be if Harney could be persuaded to stay on in the position. If that doesn't happen, and no one could fault her for sticking to her original plan, a new leader will have to be found. Two contenders, Tom Morrissey and Colm O'Gorman, are already in the field. Both are Senators for another few weeks at least.

In electoral terms, O'Gorman did better than his rival, which was no mean achievement considering that he started with no political base in Wexford. Still, getting over 2,000 votes in a difficult constituency on a bad day is one thing; leading a national political party is a different order.

Funding will also be a problem. State aid to the party will be cut on both the current headings which are based on the size of the parliamentary party, minus office holders, and the number of votes received in the election. A significant reduction on both count means that the PDs will have to cut back on their staff.

The third, and probably the most important issue, is defining what the PDs stand for. The party's core ideological mission on the economy and taxation has been accomplished, and one of its problems in the election campaign was that it had not really defined a new mission for itself.

McDowell coined the famous phrase that the party had to be either "radical or redundant." The PDs problem from 2002 onwards was that they were no longer radical but had been sucked into a cosy consensus with the Fianna Fáil establishment.

Going back into that establishment in an even weaker position than before is hardly a recipe for recovery.