PRESENT TENSE:ON RTÉ's Questions and Answers this week, the panel was asked whether they thought it was time for a national government. Fine Gael TD Charles Flanagan said it was, but without – boom boom – Fianna Fáil. He's lucky the audience didn't jeer him, because Flanagan wasn't playing fair at all. He wasn't indulging the nation in its increasingly popular daydream about a national government and its offshoot parlour game of "fantasy cabinet". Or, as both might be subtitled: "How to get Richard Bruton into government without having to vote for Enda Kenny."
Brendan Gleeson got a round of applause for mentioning the idea on the Late Late a couple of weeks ago, Garret FitzGerald was asked about it on Morning Ireland on Thursday, and it was a running theme on yesterday’s programme. The idea was also put to John Gormley this week. “I don’t think it would be responsible for any party to say that this isn’t on the agenda,” he said. “But realistically I know that Fianna Fáil are not particularly interested, nor are Fine Gael and Labour.” So, it’s like the coffee creme in a tin of Roses. It’s on the menu, but we know no one will go for it.
The thing is, although it gets talked about a lot, there hasn’t been much detail with the discussion. After all, such a move would be so mould-breaking, so seismic, that you think the debate would be about more than just idle chatter. Or perhaps we are only talking about it because there are two things the electorate has little faith in: the Government and the Opposition. So, instead of calling for a general election and a chance to rub out the X scratched on a ballot paper a couple of years ago, we get to fantasise about what it would be like to take the good bits from both and get rid of the offcuts.
Take it beyond the daydream, though, and questions hit you like cold water. Realistically, would the parties really fancy the idea? Surely, Fine Gael and Labour have their own fantasies, and they involve inflicting an almighty battering on Fianna Fáil in the next election. But even if we were to put that aside for a moment and presume that the major parties would go for the idea, would it be undemocratic? Well, no, because the electorate votes for its TDs, and the parties vote on the government, so they could do what they wanted. Plus, there would be a natural term for the government – three years, in this case.
The strength of whatever opposition remained would depend on how grand the coalition would be, but who would be there to rebut claims, object to proposals and step in for the Labour leader’s now traditional role as Mr Furious?
Meanwhile, are we really guaranteed that we’ll get a top notch team out of the political parties? Perhaps any national government, already having set its individualism aside in the interests of the greater good, would then put its ego away too and look for outside, expert help. Bringing cherry-picked outsiders into ministerial posts wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done. All members of the government must be members of the Oireachtas, so it would require asking a couple of the taoiseach’s Seanad nominees to resign so that they can be replaced by people who can contribute something other than hot air. However, the Constitution allows only two members of the Seanad to sit in the government, so we’d want to pick the right pair for the jobs or things would get messy.
Anyhow, the Constitution prohibits any member of the Seanad from taking the posts of taoiseach, tanaiste or minister for finance. That, then, would limit the options if the parties were to go for broke and wanted someone independent as taoiseach; to be a mediator between the squabbling government parties. Yet, if Brian Cowen was so brave as to admit the need for a national government, then it would be a staggering, confident and bold decision that would emphasise his leadership qualities. But then, people would complain that the change of government had been massive, but not total.
Finally, has this idea been tried in any European country in modern times? There is an example of a national government formed to face an economic crisis, but it came in Britain in 1931. Otherwise, it seems to have been the preserve of countries at, or recovering from, war. The devolved Northern Irish government has a version of it, but it fits into a post-conflict model. Outside of Europe, there was an ANC-dominated government of national unity in mid-1990s South Africa, although the circumstances were again very different to those that would trigger a similar project here. And Zimbabwe now has its “unity government”. We’re in a bad way, but we’re not Zimbabwe yet.
So there we go. Lots of questions, but not many answers. But maybe we’re not really that interested in detail right now. Perhaps it’s not a national government we’re actually asking for, but for someone – anyone – to step forward and get us out of this mess.
shegarty@irishtimes.com
