Stephen Collins: New Dáil quickly descends into a shambles

The bullying tactics of Sinn Féin on the opening day of the new Dáil cast the cold, harsh glare of reality on to all of the post-election talk about a new way of doing politics.

The election of the new Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl was conducted in smooth and dignified manner, but when the Dáil got down to brass tacks after failing to elect a Taoiseach, it quickly got ugly.

Sinn Féin, a party with 13.8 per cent of the vote and 23 TDs out of 158 sought, with the support of the AAA, to dictate to everybody else what should be debated when the House meets again on March 22nd.

A series of bad-tempered and aggressive speeches from Sinn Féin TDs were clearly designed to intimidate the newly elected Ceann Comhairle.

Mary Lou McDonald dismissed Ó Fearghaíl’s gentle attempt to get some sort of order as “a bit spurious and slavish to the established way of Dáil working”.

This prompted him to briefly abandon his conciliatory tone and describe her comments as “deeply cynical”.

Having shown enormous patience to demonstrate his commitment to defending the rights of all TDs in the House, Ó Fearghaíl was eventually left with no choice but to call a vote so that the will of the majority could prevail.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil combined to vote down Sinn Féin and the AAA's attempt to hijack the business of the Dáil, but the episode demonstrated that, in whatever way they do it, the two big parties will have to co-operate to ensure that the country is governed.

Nasty, brutish and short

If they can’t find a way of making it work properly, the life of the 32nd Dáil work is destined to be nasty, brutish and short. What Thursday’s events demonstrated is that without the authority of a government to set the agenda, the Dáil quickly descends into a shambles.

It is all very fine to provide for greater involvement of TDs in the business of running the country, but without clear guidelines the bullies will soon take control. It is all very laudable to try to transform the way politics is done but sometimes it is impossible to defy political gravity.

It is not just Sinn Féin and the AAA who are trying to have it both ways. So are many of the Independents, albeit in a far more engaging and unthreatening fashion. Danny and Michael Healy-Rae garnered media approval for saying that it was up to Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin to sort out the mess by agreeing to form a government together.

Speaking on the nomination of the taoiseach, Danny Healy Rae drew some laughs by suggesting it was akin to the referee being left without a ball at an All- Ireland final between Dublin and Kerry.

“The bigger parties must get together and offer us a government and give over what I call posturing because time is slipping by,” he said.

The problem is that approach absolves the Independents and smaller parties from any share of responsibility for the governance of the country.

They will be able to continue as before to sit on the sidelines and criticise whatever the government of the day does in response to the enormous issues facing the country.

One of the reasons the election produced such an inconclusive result is that Independents have been able to elevate their refusal to take responsibility into a point of principle and voters have lapped it up.

A striking feature of the focus group research conducted for The Irish Times before the election was that Independents were much more highly regarded than party politicians. The reason is they don't have to accept responsibility for any of the unpopular decisions governments inevitably have to make.

Fianna Fáil has set its face so strongly against a coalition with Fine Gael precisely because of the fear that Independents, as well as Sinn Féin, will thrive, with the luxury of being able to blame the two big parties for every unpopular decision taken by government.

If Fianna Fáil maintains its refusal to contemplate a coalition with Fine Gael, the only alternative is a minority government led by one of the parties.

Given that each of them is so far short of a majority, such a government would require cast-iron commitments of support from the other to have any chance of surviving for a reasonable term.

Then there is the question of whether it should be a Fine Gael- or a Fianna Fáil-led minority government. Initially the assumption was that Fine Gael would have to remain in office, but some members of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, encouraged by Independents, now believe it can be led by Micheál Martin.

Coherence

However, a Fianna Fáil-led minority government would probably be even more unstable than a Fine Gael-led one, given that the party has seven fewer seats in the Dáil.

The vote on Sinn Féin’s attempt to take control of business when the Dáil meets next on March 22nd illustrated just how difficult it is going to be to get any coherence without agreement between the major parties.

The Government easily carried the day with 100 votes to 32. Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Greens and a number of Independents backed the Government, but Sinn Féin got the backing of the AAA and Independents including Katherine Zappone, Michael Collins and Séamus Healy.

It demonstrated that the Dáil will only be able to function properly through the co-operation of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. They have the next few weeks to figure out if and how that can be done.