What has happened this past year? Sixteen months ago we had a new leader, a new hope and an approval rating in the high seventies or even eighties. Which obviously means FGers, Labour, all sides wanted to give the new guy a chance.
Within FF there was excitement, we’d liked Bertie, loved his focus on the North and his unalloyed Republicanism, but the halo was losing some sheen each day with a thousand rain drops one by one dulling the sparkle and it all became too much in the end. We accepted whilst he had done great things, he was from a different time and at this stage it was best all round to now move on and make a clean break.
And so a new hero was born. Brian Cowen the straight talking Offally man stepped forth. A man who liked a pint in his local and who knew one side of a GAA pitch from the other (played intercounty himself at one point) we remembered his thundering performances at Ard Fheiseanna, his grá for the cupla focal, there was a past skirmish with Paisley and there was the way he grasped the nettle in the dying days of General Election 2007 seeming to singlehandedly recover the campaign and propel the party to an unexpected poll topping performance. His own name attracted 18,000 votes on the ballot paper in his own Offally, biggest vote of the election for any candidate. On a policy and cerebral level his articulation of reform, his targeting of public service efficiencies, his espousal of Europe, his disinterest in the politics of spin and the preference for direct honest engagement. Here was a dyed in the wool Fianna Fáil man, one who would restore our faltering fortunes, a focus on historic values and righting the wrongs of past administrations, our own and others. No brown envelopes, no baggage, just a straight shooter getting down to business. We were looking at a thousand year .. reign!
Alas it has not transpired that way. What exactly has he done wrong? Losing Lisbon was a bad start of course and the honeymoon was over. Clouds gathered on the markets at home and abroad over the next Summer until the fall of Lehmans in September 08 heralded a new era in the world economy. The housing market had been stalled from almost a year before when McDowell uttered his now infamous words on stamp duty which ultimately went on to define and dog the GE07 campaign, with FG and Labour egging on any concessions to the housing crescendo, amidst calls for raised spending and cuts in taxes, promises which seem as alien now as they were foolhardy then but which is all forgotten in the pasts of time.
Amidst a daily weakening market domestically and internationally the new government, still barely a Summer in office, brought forward the budget in an attempt to quell the tide and show some steel. A tough budget followed in October when the first cracks in the government’s style showed. Amidst funding cutbacks and unpopular tax levies, a measure to withdraw automatic entitlements was met with sheer unmitigated fury. Thousands marched on the Dáil in a form of public unrest not seen for decades. Pensioners wrath was a force to be reckoned with and the country seemed on the brink of crisis as each day grew more unruly than the next. In retrospect, whilst is did mark a policy shift (from automatic entitlement to means tested benefits) it would have been very foolish for a government to fall on the back of removing automatic entitlements from the more wealthy of our pensioners.
Anyway, weakened but still afloat the government lurched on. In February we had an emergency budget, in the context of national accounting it was very necessary and again the government targeted a sacred cow. Public service pensions, generous to a level long since obsolete in the private sector, with guaranteed payments and an index linked defined benefit (regardless of fund performance) were targeted for greater employee contributions. Call it a tax, an increased levy, there were technical reasons for how it was applied (primarily to safeguard the income of existing retirees whose benefits are linked), the measure was justified, necessary but provoked a populist backlash. Overnight the public sector walked out of Ballybrit and into Cirque de Soleil (ie they shifted from Fianna Fáil to Labour) and the next poll showed us on 20-something percent.
No worse there is none but indeed it was to come. A rough locals, a tumultuous Summer and back to business this past few weeks. A reasonable month or two for the government (or so I thought), no particular scandal (Our Ceann Comhairle’s excesses aside although this does not seem to have entered public consciousness to the extent that it should). The government had begun to show some mettle, the tough decisions were being taken (Budgets I & II, public sector levy, Lisbon guarantees, NAMA) the NAMA legislation had been aired with all in the spirit of consultation and improvement. Whilst modern day FG played politics with the legislation, not one but two elder statesmen of the Fine Gael party (Garrett Fitzgerald and Alan Dukes) came out in favour of the government approach. Opposition plans from the populist Labour to the ‘oppose for opposition sake’ FG plans aside, informed sentiment appeared to be reconciling to the idea. A few bad days at the office for Enda Kenny caught short on the detail and a few better days for An Taoiseach beginning at last to communicate with his people.
And yet we turn a corner, turn a page to find 17%. At this stage it seems many want change for changes sake. The policies are no longer important, the principles are no longer important, the people want change and that’s about the long and the short of it. I hope we get through these nextfew months. Get Lisbon under our belts and allow us proceed with Europe. Get NAMA up and running with amendments as necessary from Green party and other parties interested in improving the legislation. Get the December budget out of the way with whatever necessary pain that may entail. Into the new year, lets start afresh in January. A reshuffle at that stage, some new faces in cabinet, more talent from the backbenches and perhaps a rapprochement for others (John McGuinness for example). Survive the winter league, get new blood out training in the Spring, put our best team on the pitch and look to the Summer with hope.
