Fine Gael members gather on eve of a year that will test and define the party

Fine Gael gathers this weekend for a special conference on the eve of a year that may be dominated by three elections defining the trajectory of the party and its leadership.

Across the board, Irish politics is facing a period culminating either in a general election in 2024 or the effective start to a campaign building to a vote in early 2025.

On the threshold of this vital period, a dozen interviews with figures across Fine Gael in advance of its conference yielded no clear consensus on whether it is primed and building to a peak, or unable to generate the momentum it needs in advance of contests that will test and define it as rarely before.

Multiple sources within the party described its mood as “flat” or in similar terms.

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Are Fine Gael all out of fight ahead of a year that could define the party?

Listen | 38:15

Fine Gael has not collapsed or entered into a terminal decline, but the combination of unfulfilled electoral promises of the Leo Varadkar era with a listlessness born of more than a decade in Government has recently been accentuated by a party where a considerable number is leaving politics.

“There’s eight to 10 TDs who have checked out; they’re not fully mobilised,” said one backbencher.

[ Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil: is there any difference? Two party loyalists argue it out ]

Lamenting the loss of figures such as Kerry TD and former minister of state Brendan Griffin, the source added: “These guys, when they were firing on all cylinders, brought fierce energy to the party.”

Notwithstanding any sluggishness in the party, Regina Doherty, the former cabinet minister and current Senator – said to be contemplating a run for Europe next summer – characterised the mood in the wider party as more buoyant. Reading the papers, she said the impression was that everyone in Fine Gael was tired and a spell on the Opposition benches would be good for the party.

“That’s not the evidence and feedback we’re getting back now,” she said. “I think the mood is better than what people would suggest it is.”

While other parties are having ardfheiseanna – meetings that involve formal delegations and proposals from branches, binding votes and rallying calls from prominent figures – Fine Gael is having a special conference.

One focus is the role of the member in Fine Gael. It will include discussions about overhauling how the leader is elected, including reforming the electoral college system which heavily favours votes from the parliamentary party over the grassroots. This saw Varadkar romp home in 2017. This is the dull but important stuff that political parties care about, although some TDs complain privately about how it has taken shape.

One said the conference has been burdened with a range of other topics to become “one big non-event instead of three separate ones”; another senior figure worries about the theme being “very inward looking” and question why it isn’t a themed with more broad-based appeal.

The second focus is more straightforwardly political: whether Fine Gael is “delivering for rural Ireland”. Senator Tim Lombard, based in Cork South West, said this was about earning recognition for the work put into rural Ireland. This has a clear political intent; he argues that “rural Independents have to some extent taken our clothes in rural Ireland . . . working on the narrative that rural Ireland is dying, which is a false narrative”.

One Fine Gael source in Government sees rural Ireland as a “battleground”, with support for Sinn Féin fairly thin among farmers. Much of the rural vote, they believe, may float between Independents, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Some TDs say they may avoid this weekend’s gathering, seeing greater value in spending time in their constituencies as the festive season approaches and an electoral cycle gains speed. One dismissed it as “an agricultural conference being held in Maynooth”.

Like the other Coalition party leaders, there is no threat to Varadkar at present, though polling is less than inspiring. The party registering 18 per cent in the last two Irish Times/Ipsos polls. In September’s poll, it was behind Fianna Fáil everywhere except Dublin.

[ The Irish Times poll: The full results in charts ]

Nonetheless, both backbenchers and senior figures believe Fine Gael can be the largest mainstream party after the next election and lead another government with Fianna Fáil and others.

While free-spending budgets haven’t fundamentally changed the polling dynamics, one backbench TD said they were now a “containing exercise where you stop momentum shifting to the Opposition”.

One optimist in the parliamentary party said that compared to 12 months ago there was a “much better feeling”. At the other end of the spectrum, the verdict is more dour: “There are no signs of life as to how we could be the largest of the two Civil War parties after the next election,” confided one rebel TD.

The bigger challenge, said one Minister, was “about needing the electorate to believe we can lead the next government”.

There are frustrations in some quarters that initiatives in childcare and education are carried out through non-Fine Gael departments, and that the Taoiseach’s child poverty unit has failed to soar by capturing all these interventions under one banner. Big spending budgets may not even live long in the memory.

One source closely involved in the budgetary process said: “It does worry you that people say, ‘Grand, that happened, and now I’m moving on’.”

The party will doubtless trumpet budget day tax cuts, which are never unpopular. But the fear is voters are more likely to react to shortcomings in addressing chronic problems.

“People do feel the constraints and it’s not just housing,” said a Fine Gael figure in Government.

Looming over all this are the three elections. The initial focus will be on next summer’s local elections, with 90 per cent of conventions due to complete by the end of the year and about 85 per cent of 250 sitting councillors running again. Finishing schools are being run for new candidates.

Several members of the current Fine Gael parliamentary party are considering a tilt at Europe with the European Parliament elections in June, with vacancies left by the retiring Frances Fitzgerald in Dublin and Deirdre Clune in Ireland South.

[ Veteran MEP Deirdre Clune becomes latest Fine Gael grandee to announce retirement ]

Senators Tim Lombard (South) – and Doherty and Barry Ward (both Dublin) – are said to be considering a run, while Jerry Buttimer is seen as less likely to run in Munster due to his role as Cathaoirleach of the Seanad. Retiring TDs Richard Bruton and Michael Creed have been mentioned in dispatches.

The stakes would be trickier for sitting TDs who intend to stand again diverting to Brussels – specifically Colm Brophy or Minister of State Josepha Madigan, both of whom are known to be considering a run.

Winning campaigns would invite byelections in seats Fine Gael intended to defend with incumbents in the next general election. From outside the current crop of TDs and Senators, former TDs Noel Rock and Kate O’Connell have been mentioned. Byelections may also be forced on Fine Gael regardless of its performance, with Barry Cowen among those Government TDs said to be considering a run for Europe.

Governments usually struggle in byelections. The prospect of this Government following the same pattern as the last – heading into a general election off the back of poor byelection results – fills insiders with dread, and likely shortens the odds on an autumn 2024 election.

If there is a rallying cry, one source believes it is that the coming year will see it in the “fight of its life” to prevent a Sinn Féin government, an objective “that unites everybody in the Fine Gael party”.

Whether that provides sufficient energy remains to be seen.