My experience over the past few years has been that there are plenty of individual members out there in social media and other fora with strong opinions and articulate viewpoints even at times when the ‘senior party’ was more reticent. Thankfully nowadays the party is all singing off the same hymn sheet at every level but either way our new project is designed to give those members a voice and an outlet for discussion, debate, to compare notes and to renew the party.

The results went to press last month and are now in circulation amongst the party membership. Our new magazine is called CUISLE (“Pulse”, translated) and contains 32 pages of opinion, commentary, analysis some positive, some stark, all candid and all unfiltered and straight from the membership. I am delighted with the results and great to finally now see it in print. I have a few pieces in it myself and was honoured to serve on the editorial board. This is hopefully just one of many projects over the months and years ahead that will allow the membership renew the party and exercise democracy and direction as to where and what sort of party we all want to end up with.  We might have a smaller party but perhaps a small passionate membership is better than a horde of good time golfers. Anything in life is what you make it and now we have that chance. If any readers would like a copy of the new mag, get in touch.

“For years Fine Gael and Labour have it both ways by controlling the council yet playing the blame game that Fianna Fáil were in power and that they had no control. But that ignores the reality that Fianna Fáil have not held a majority on Kildare county council for over twenty years. And now that Fine Gael and Labour Ministers are undeniably holding the purse strings at both national and local level they can not hide behind the excuse of being powerless any longer” said James. “What’s more even as recently as last January 2011, when Fianna Fáil were in power nationally, one of the last acts of the outgoing Fianna Fáil Minister Pat Carey was to allocate a funding of 900 Million from the Department of Transport to be allocated for regional road works by local authorities. This money was made available and ring fenced even in a time of scarcity and that money should now be put to use by the Kildare County Council on the many urgent projects long outstanding throughout the constituency.” James explained.

“So the blanket response of no money is not accurate on a number of levels. In the current council budget an allocation of 25 million is contained for road and transportation improvements. Resource are scarce but there is funding available and these scarce resources need to be prioritised to those urgent projects most in need”.

“A critical example close to home is the Osberstown junction on the Sallins – Naas road. This junction sees huge volume of traffic traverse the main thoroughfare whilst traffic from the neighbouring estates and side-road struggle continuously to find a break in fast moving traffic. Traffic from Caragh also uses this junction and the volumes of throughput have only multiplied in recent years. Yet despite being an accident waiting to happen we have yet to see any action at this junction barring the farcical situation where traffic lights were erected and then taken down again almost as quickly, all in the space of a crazy three weeks at the midpoint in the crisis” according to James.

“Scarce resources need to be targeted to those areas most in need and this junction is surely one of them” James continued. “The excuse of no funds is a blanket one that is not entirely accurate and the council needs to prioritise this and many other outstanding works for the welfare and safety of people at all these locations“ concluded James.

It does mean we are paying back more interest in the longer term but again I think that’s a price worth paying for more day to day flexibility. Also with presumed inflation the capital amount to be repaid should be less in real terms by redemption date.

Really the Greek difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. Ireland, along with Portugal and possibly Spain, got lucky in terms of the wider European events conspiring to mean an overall solution had to be brokered. In the early days the thinking from Europe seemed to have been to “make an example” out of Ireland however as the solution was rolled out across further countries and as the Euro was coming under increased pressure, eventually something had to give. It seems Greece itself will be permitted a degree of default but that it will be strictly ring-fenced to that jurisdiction. Not convinced this will work, neither is Shane Ross.

A good break for Ireland though. Of course the interest rate cut only applies to one element of the bailout, the EFSF proportion, for all their malignment, the IMF rate was always more hospitable (c. 3%) and then there is EU / ECB funding, the latter through the backdoor into the Irish banks (which is partly what forced the bailout to be formalised in the first place) and other arrangements. I understand the bilateral agreements with UK and other countries (Sweden?) have yet to be drawn down, so the rate on those may not have been finalised yet. So the interest rate cut is only one part of a much wider pie, including many lenders and many different rates, but still a welcome development all the same. Not a panacea but sure we’ll take a Parthenon while it’s going spare.

My last post was about Brian Lenihan and the tragic echo of unfulfilled promise ala Camelot / Kennedy. The loss manifests in what might have been earlier as much as what might have been later in the sense that his time at the wheel came when the ship was already headed for the rocks.

His period at the helm of Ireland’s finances was possibly the most turbulent any Minister has had to face since independence and must have been especially so for a new Minister only in his brief a matter of weeks when the crisis hit. One cannot help but wonder what might have been had Bertie got over his own issues and recognised talent earlier, and had Brian’s undoubted ability at the cabinet table in the preceding years.

Unfortunately the period will be remembered probably for a series of fairly cataclysmic events running roughly from the guarantee up to the week the IMF landed and including the austerity budgets in between. The full story of those weeks, months, years has yet to be written and it may be many moons before we find out what really went on behind the scenes through that time, if ever. Yet some revelations have emerged into public discourse already such as in Brian’s own BBC interview and in Morgan Kelly’s recent Irish Times piece. I was surprised having coffee with some colleagues recently that these more recent revelations did not seem to have pervaded public consciousness to the extent that I might have expected.

The basic facts are clear. A guarantee was extended in 2009 to cover banking debt, this increased the national debt, along with rapid deterioration in the public finances this created twin pillars of economic and banking crises which proved insoluble in national isolation. Enter the IMF to replace the bond markets along with a programme of austerity agreed in conjunction with the EU and we are where we are.

That much, I believe is understood and uncontested. What is less clear is how, who, why the various events unfolded as they did.

The crisis in the public finances I believe could have been corrected by the austerity budgets. That particular cycle had happened before and may happen again. It was the banking crisis that really did the damage. The banking guarantee appears in hindsight to have been a mistake, yet who is to say what would have happened in the alternative, whether the banking system and perhaps the entire economy collapsed literally overnight? Could a single bank (Anglo) been allowed go to the wall, as effectively happened with Lehman brothers in the states previously. It is intuitively attractive to suggest that it could, yet it seems the prevailing argument against was really one of Euro Zone stability, rather or at least more so, than any vested local interest. Brian Lenihan in an interview for FrontLine in the early days of the crisis repeatedly stressed that no European bank had failed in the post war ear and it wouldn’t start here now. It is possible there was an element of pride in this, that Ireland would not be the one to let the side down. It is also possible and quite probable that the EU were strong arming the position and no bank would be allowed to fail without a flood of punitive consequences for the errant nation. It is also the case that despite the scornful commentary since, the weight of economic opinion at the time was divided on the issue with later critics such as McWilliams at the time calling for such a solution. In fact on the night the guarantee was voted through the Dáil, it was supported by all parties, except Labour who alone opposed. In fact, while it seems ironic now, I remember a Fine Gael friend saying to to me at the time “Labour will pay for this” (for opposing the guarauntee) . And yet one can’t help feel Labour opposed merely because they could as they grand standed on so many other issues in opposition. And of course FG swept home to a huge election victory despite having supported it.

I will return to this subject again in later posts..

As was remarked during the week when Garrett Fitzgerald was 52 he hadn’t even served in his first government yet, let alone been party leader and twice Taoiseach and a distinguished commentator for decades after.

Brian faced his illness with dignity and great courage and seemed resolute until the end to keep ‘fighting the good fight’. Even with death around the corner and the gale raging against, he stayed fixed to the mast of the national finances and soldiered to the bitter end.  There has naturally been a lot of talk about his legacy in recent days and most have focused on his dedication, patriotism, decent and probably above all courage in the face of such extreme adversity as he battled against the storm raging both outside in the wider world and inside his own body.

In a couple of follow up blogs I will consider recent events more closely, but for now suffice to mark the passing of the man. One cannot help but wonder what might have been had Bertie given him his start earlier, and had his undoubted ability at the cabinet table in the preceding years.

His father before him was another giant of Irish politics and in many ways was hewn from the old Fianna Fáil cloth, championing independent foreign policy on causes as Palestine, double dealing with the British over commonwealth membership in return for the six counties back, advancing education through the development of the regional technical colleges, rolling back censorship a most liberal and progressive move for the time, among many other achievements. Of course Brian senior got to spend thirty years as a senior Minister, Brian junior barely got three.

The family has been beset by tragedy, as eloquently chronicled by Jonny Fallon last week, and it was in this context I was reminded of the Kennedys when I first heard the news of Brian’s passing last week. Doomed by fate and bad luck and equally poignant in promise unfulfilled, it is well documented how three Kennedys in succession attempted to take the White House, each one falling to a different fate. In a swansong to his own dreams but a rallying cry for the greater cause, Teddy Kennedy delivered the last of the Camelot speeches in 1979 when he was narrowly beaten for the democratic nomination in what he knew would be the last chance for a Kennedy ever again to take the top prize.

I think his words then are relevant now and I sign out on those lines..

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Slán a Bhrian. Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis.

The weather is certainly shaping up nicely and augurs well for the long weekend. I intend to get busy blogging again now I’ll have a little more free time in the evenings and have something of a backlog of drafts written but never competed during my long winter solstice of sorts which I might have to dust down.

Musing quickly over recent events, the Queen’s visit certainly went off well and won over many including me, the ceremony at Islandbridge was particularly historic, especially coming on the heels of the garden of remembrance. Whatever our political or historical beliefs we absolutely must respect those on all sides who made sacrifices and it is quite shameful really to think how many of those ex-veterans had to hide their military record or become pariahs in post-independence period. I read recently an account of life through the transition from a former nationalist but also of ascendancy stock, Barrister Maurice Healy who practiced on the Munster circuit but basically had to flee to the UK when the atmosphere became too hostile for him here.

A memorable passage in the book talks about an exiled ageing magistrate withering in the equatorial sun passing justice amongst the burghers of malay kay or some far flung colonial outpost all the time pining for his days skipping from Cork to Tralee with empty pockets but a head fit to burst from the excitement of the day ahead .. or something along those lines. Interesting stuff indeed. Our history is truly a complex one.

Obama’s pint in Offaly went down well and even if Enda nicked a few lines from one of his speeches well so what, I’ve done it myself (see if you can spot a line here : ) )

The government have had a mixed bag, good publicity though little real action, it seems they are coming to terms with the enormity of the problem in a somewhat tempestuous fashion as we have seen with various Ministers doing “solo runs” or “speaking out of turn”, one wonders whether Enda Kenny’s ‘Chairman not Chief’ approach to managing his team of the talents will prove effective as the coalition comes under strain.

Anyway all will be revealed I expect in due course.. Expect much more commentary from this direction in any case over the next few months. I hope you stay tuned!

Notwithstanding all that, it remains my earnest belief that ‘unfinished business’ remains in the North of Ireland. In an ideal world constitutional arrangements to bring about unity and address the situation would be on the agenda for a visit of this kind. I accept of course the realpolitik is that these matters are more for Downing Street than Buckingham Palace at this point. A welcome for the Queen is the mature and right approach. Apart from even the politics of the event, the huge interest and goodwill towards the recent Royal Wedding recently highlighted the positivity that now exists between and across institutions on these islands.

In many ways I respect, even admire the British Empire. Ironically not so much now as when it was at the height of its colonial power. The expansion of its reach across the world. Its engineering and military accomplishments. The system of administration and governance it left in many corners. The system of the common law that is still in place today in most quarters of the English speaking world. Its characters/creations. No friends of Ireland of course, but still characters in their own right. Lord Denning. Lloyd George. Winston Churchill. Montgomery. Sherlock Holmes!

All this being so, it is my belief that there remains a fundamental difficulty with the continuance of partition on this island. This is not about the past but about the future.  As constitutional nationalists, it is fundamental that we accept consent and democratic will to be essential provisos to any progression. However we must continue to view the current constitutional position as merely a stepping stone on the road to eventual full unity in name, jurisdiction, territory and peoples. (A nation once again?) In such a scenario we may even all join with our (then) unionist fellow citizens in hanging out our bunting ..

On more general matters I’ve been watching events unfold on the national and European scene. Interesting if worrying that Portugal has now succumbed to an IMF bailout also. One has to wonder if parliament had held their nerve and passed their austerity budget would it have come to this. They chose to bring the house down and take their chances and will probably end up with similar if not harsher measures now anyway. Perhaps the politicians there thought if they could be seen to go down fighting they could escape an electoral bloodbath. They may just be punished now for shirking responsibility, I doubt they will escape political repercussion whatever happens.

It’s tempting to point to this and a follow-on predicted EU/IMF bailout for Spain and say Ireland wasn’t so bad, sure it’s happening across the EU. And that would be partly true. But just like the Portuguese, that doesn’t absolve the government here. Obviously the bank guarantee and other decisions will prove to have been critical along the way (although we still don’t know what the alternative would have been, even more so since the stark refusal of EU to sanction any kind of default within the community – including letting any bank fail – but I simply don’t know all the answers here, don’t think anyone does). But all that aside, what did for Fianna Fáil in the end was the attitude. Not the attitude of Fianna Fáil members up and down the country and I’ve spoken on that theme before, but I mean Fianna Fáil in government and the Ministers etc. It is simply unbelievable that in the middle of all this they saw (or at least appeared to see) nothing wrong with running for the hills with their satchels loaded. They may well have worked hard through their careers, and of course there were legal entitlements, but these were not normal times. There are senses of perspective sometimes needed and many let their party (and country) down badly. The perception projected out of government buildings right up to the end was one of business as usual with very little sense of adaptation or even awareness of a crisis. I am sure it was a hellish place to be towards the end, a bit of the Berlin bunker or Saigon rooftop about it, but it didn’t have to be that way. The Irish people are forgiving, they are understanding and with a bit of honest leadership and a real willingness to engage and a courage to lead it could have been Fianna Fáil’s finest hour. Brian Lenihan did manage to muster some of that spirit for a while but even he lost it at the end when it all just became too much talk. There are lessons to be learned from history as always. I think “Tell it straight, talk the talk but most of all walk the walk” about sums it up.

Michael Portillo has his ‘moment’ in 1997

However I wanted to post up some thoughts before the votes are cast and counted this weekend. Firstly I am delighted to see a new leader sweeping clean and I think Martin has had a great couple of weeks since he first took the reins, only a short few weeks ago. I supported him since his first move started and was delighted someone had finally found the courage of his convictions and cried halt. Brian Cowen was by no means a bad man, but he was, most unfortunately, a poor leader at the top, and he simply lacked the necessary mojo to lead the country or the party though these times of crisis. On the latter point it still amazes me when people talk about Brian Cowen putting the party first, when under his watch the party plummeted from 40% (RedC, May 08) to 8% (QR, Jan 11) just before he moved aside.

Moving swiftly on..  the battle for Fianna Fáil in this election is to be the lead party of opposition and to ensure relevance in the new world. In a curious way I am possibly more hopeful for the future of the party now than I have been for some time. Having spoken to many like minded party supporters and activists around the country, we look forward to the opportunity in opposition of rebuilding the party, of restoring past values, of restoring internal democracy, making the grass roots relevant again, removing the disconnect from those in high office and of coming back with a party we can be proud of in time for 2016.

When Micheál Martin gave his rallying cry on Sunday in Navan, he invoked the spirit of Aiken, Lemass, Markiewicz and other greats of Fianna Fáil and Irish history. These may not be fashionable in some media circles but they still remind those in Fianna Fáil of why we started in the first place. Martin has reenergised the troops and held out the promise – it is up to every member now to carry that forward, into the election and beyond.

Of course the party will lose seats. And in some cases it will be no harm. It used to be said you could stick a donkey on a Fianna Fáil ticket and they would get elected. I never saw those days myself! In fact when I ran in 09 I would say I had to work a lot harder for every vote than most other candidates in the same race. In many cases I won votes in spite of party affiliation, rather than because of. I have a friend used be an activist in Democratic Left. He was not surprised when they went on to take over the Labour party – because of their very low base, DL candidates had to be extra strong and especially capable to get elected. There is an element at the moment where some ‘Donkeys’ may still do it for Fine Gael and Labour, with the wind at their backs, but Fianna Fáil candidates will need to be seriously good to make it in future – and that is exactly how it should be.

The party is overdue a refresh and I am delighted to see former Ógra FF colleagues such as Averil Power in Dublin North East, Charlie McConalogue in Donegal North West and Dara Calleary in Mayo, all out on the pitch and doing well. (Also surprise late entrant, my Kings Inns classmate Lisa Chambers, in Mayo as the youngest female candidate of GE2011). When I spoke a few posts back about how I defined the party these were the people I had in mind – my own party circle, people whom I know to be of great ability and potential, and more relevant to me, then and now, than most Ministers. It is also inspirational to see people like Dr. Hillery in Clare enter the fray, a name synonymous with great times past and a man who stepped out of a comfortable medical career to keep the flame alive.

A few commentators recently have spoken about a “Portillo moment”, an image that would define the election, where a party stalwart lost their seat in a shock but symbolic defeat. The commentators suggested Mary Coughlan as this Portillo figure. I disagree. The only Portillo moment would be if none of the above were elected ; from 26^th Feb on Fianna Fáil must be about the future not the past, in personnel, policies and  practice.

This post is not intended to delve into those matters in detail however, more to answer a question that is often raised, as to who is Fianna Fáil, and perhaps these days, how can they be supported?

The theme of this post is to give my view of Fianna Fáil, who and what it is, and what I wish it can become in future. The gap between the media and sometimes public stereotype of the party and mine and ordinary members experience is worth highlighting and may also help illustrate why and how members do support the party in good times and bad.

A concept I have been musing over recently is one of “collegiate loyalty” and it was expressed very well by a friend and party member recently when he said the reason he is in Fianna Fáil is the people. The people he meets and knows in Fianna Fáil and with whom he finds common ground on so many areas. I think this explanation is spot on and is akin to an explanation that I gave to a workmate recently, that you don’t just walk away from family. More to the point when a member of the public thinks of FF, more than likely Brian Cowen or Noel Demsey or some other senior Minister comes to mind ; for myself and many grass roots members it is our friends, fellow members and activist colleagues who define the party and with whom we have far far more interaction and debate with than the Taoiseach or some abstract figures we may encounter once a year at a party function.

Fianna Fáil at membership level is like any other organisation in the country consisting of a cross-section of the population, with perhaps an additional element of volunteerism and public service in that almost every cumann member I know is also involved in a plethora of community groups from GAA to Tidy Towns to Community Councils to Parish Committees to Meals on Wheels to St. Vincent de Paul to Residents Associations and everything else in between. A kind of political rotary club. The occupations include everything from teachers, lawyers, software engineers, butchers, builders, tradespeople, shopkeepers, academic researchers, project managers, mechanics, full time students, blue collar, white collar, green collar everything in between. A cross section of society. Just to take one example, one lifelong cumann member has spent every Friday evening for the past 20 years or more (voluntarily) using his tractor to trim the grass of the local GAA field prior to training and matches each weekend. The same man is to be found every Summer’s Saturday knee deep in bedding plants or topsoil as he labours around the village for the Tidy Towns each May till August in preparation for the judging. It should be remembered the vast majority of these members are not and have no desire to be public representatives but believe in “getting stuck in”, doing their bit for their communities.

At national level I have another circle of Fianna Fáil friends dating back to Ógra days on national party committees or friends made in Trinity students’ union whom have all stayed in touch. Any one of this wide circle of acquaintances and friends and neighbours are the people who come to mind when I think of Fianna Fáil, far ahead of any thoughts of the Taoiseach or the figures at the helm.

(On a side note many contemporaries in the latter circle in particular, also fought elections in recent times, being of my own generation coming of age to do so in the last couple of years and having first outings. To the detriment of the organisation (and I believe the electorate) most did not make it but most tellingly almost all campaigns, win lose or draw were funded from personal budgets or borrowings, there was usually some contribution from the local party but there were certainly no brown envelopes or hefty corporate donations winging their way to any candidates of my acquaintance. Again if there was a culture of corporate collaboration it did not pervade beyond the peak of the pyramid.)

The tragedy of Fianna Fáil in recent years, and it pre-dates Brian Cowen, is that these voices have gone unheard. The cumann structures and the party organisation has been turned from a democratic member-centric organisation to a factory floor type workforce for an aloof central committee in the offices on the top floor.

There may be one side-effect of the party doldrums that might even make it all worth it in the end, and that is the casting off of ‘carpet-baggers’ and mé féiners who gravitated in the past towards what was the natural party of power and have often exerted a disproportionate dominance over the party whole, not least as their inevitable episodes of excess spilled over to flood the whole party in their wake each time.

When people talk of saving Fianna Fáil and rebuilding, it is the pyramid beneath that needs to be saved and to find voice. It is the re-assertion of the body politic, of the ordinary and often inspiring membership that need to take precedence and that must be the goal of any rebuilding. The exact shape, size and policies of the emergent organisation require attention and definition but the approach must be inclusive and democratic. The legion of the rearguard needs to step out from the rear and go front centre and that will certainly be a party worth saving.