BOOK OF THE DAY: Showtime: The Inside Story of Fianna Fáil in Power, By Pat Leahy Penguin Ireland, 365pp, €19.99
THOSE OF us who feel that the Government has been criticised too harshly for creating the economic crisis, especially by those wise after the event, will have such indulgence sorely tested by this compelling account.
Not only did Fianna Fáil continue to spend recklessly through the years when they should have been reining it in, but they also did so cynically for pure electoral gain, especially in the 2004 election. Not that those so wise now were particularly vocal then, and only a few lone economists warned of the dire consequences of a possible credit crunch.
As late as the 2007 election, no less, even the Labour Party were arguing for more tax cuts.
This is because of a political system (and media) which panders to the electorate and offers only goodies and no pain – even now.
As Leahy writes: “showtime politics was ruled by the electoral cycle and where everything – policy, economics, government personnel and coalition choices – was subjected to the overwhelming imperative of retaining power”.
For Bertie Ahern, this was a particular obsession. “The electoral imperative expressed itself in a chronic short-termism when governing and an almost manic desire to cultivate, carefully and individually, a myriad of constituencies – ranging from school action groups to powerful public sector, from builders to hospital consultants”.
Of course, when it comes to confronting such lobbies, the Government is paralysed. Worse still, the fragmentation of society into these myriad and competing groups means that the overall good of the community is lost, with no one now prepared to make sacrifices.
Leahy well describes the growing power of the creepy backroom analysts, with their reductive data and focus groups, feeding this pandering.
Many political books in Ireland are often dry analysis of long-dead icons, or cut and paste rush jobs for the Christmas market. But Leahy’s book is an excellent mixture of political history and compelling narrative.
At times, it is truly like a thriller, where we anxiously read on to see what happens next, even though, unfortunately, we know what happens next. One gets a sense of the chronology of events, and of Ahern’s overall career, and of the influence of figures like Charlie McCreevy, architect of the boom, who effectively ran economic policy along with the PDs, and imported their philosophy into his party: the low tax, free market model.
In the end, it was not the economy that did for Ahern, but the Mahon tribunal.
At the outset of the 2007 election, he was politically damaged – permanently . Fianna Fáil went on to win the election, and it is a credit to Brian Cowen for rescuing this victory.
People rarely mention this now, and if they do, it is to ask where such a fighting spirit has gone to. Oddly, Leahy’s book makes one nostalgic for the boom years. And it should be said, repeatedly, that despite the gloomy economic mess we find ourselves in, we had a decade of economic growth that transformed the country.
However, the feeling one gets from this account is sadness: sadness that the riches were thrown away; sadness at the way Ahern’s career ended and sadness at the anger that followed the good times.
Eamon Delaney's next book is Breaking the Mould – A story of Art and Ireland, which will be published this autumn by New Island