MANY IN Fianna Fáil are pinning their hopes of eventual electoral recovery on the inevitable unpopularity of “the other crowd” in the future, but all admit the party’s once-famous infrastructure has been reduced to a shadow of itself.
Former Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke, one of 58 party deputies to lose their seats last weekend, says the organisation cannot regain its status as a national movement. “There will never again be in Irish political life a party of the size of Fianna Fáil when we were at our height,” she says.
Micheál Martin, she adds, “has a mountain to climb, and it will be difficult for him. There’ll be lonely nights, with lots of chicken-and-chips suppers.”
Many within the party speak of adopting what they call the “Enda template”, a decade-long plan drafted by Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery soon after Kenny became party leader, in 2002.
Fianna Fáil was offered its own template in an internal report presented to its national executive last May. The report, prepared by Chris Flood and his fellow former minister Gerard Collins, warns of dwindling support, particularly in urban areas, stating that many of the party’s organisational difficulties had persisted for years and were exacerbated by the failure to fully implement previous recommendations of reform. The electoral consequences of this at local-authority level in 2009 had been “most unsatisfactory”.
The report gives a glimpse of what was to come in the general election. It also, however, proposes a series of potential damage-limitation measures. TDs not intending to contest the general election in Dublin constituencies should have told the party immediately, the report says. It calls for an end to the phenomenon of so-called paper cumainn – associations that exist largely on paper – arguing that many city-based cumainn no longer make a contribution.The report was ignored.
The structure of Fianna Fáil, with its references to cumainn, comhairle ceantair (area council) and comhairle dáil ceantair (constituency council), can appear labyrinthine to outsiders. The cumainn, which effectively represent polling-station areas or what are sometimes still referred to as parishes, are meant to be the eyes and ears of the party. Fianna Fáil claims to have 3,000 active cumainn.
The former TD Noel Ahern says his Dublin North West constituency has “20-odd” cumainn and a comhairle meeting once a month. “Is it as vibrant as it was 20 years ago? No. Summers always seemed to have better weather looking back. Comhairle meetings always seemed more exciting, too, but there probably was more vitality at that sort of level.”
Ahern, a brother of the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern,is a fan of the cumainn system but points to problems that have crept in over the years, such as the advancing age of members. He also says some cumainn have weakened and become “too closely identified with particular politicians”. “Whether these people stay around when their TD has gone remains to be seen.”
Johnny Fallon, a long-time party activist who flies the flag for Fianna Fáil on Twitter, traces the disconnect between volunteers and officials back to the late 1990s. Fallon says Ahern’s successor Cowen was hailed as “the hero of the grassroots” but even the backbenchers found they could not secure access to the largely desk-bound Taoiseach in Government Buildings, let alone persuade him to visit their constituencies.
The grassroots responded well, however, to Martin proclaiming in January that “the party is dying”, Fallon says, and the leader’s announcement of a national tour has been welcomed. But what can Martin expect around the country?
“There isn’t a chicken-and-chips circuit any more. In the past, if you were in a political party the social element was huge. That was the reason you didn’t leave. The social network: Fiánna Fail was wonderful at that,” he says.
Fallon also says cumainn saw their input to party policy dwindle in the late 1990s as the ardfheis became a media showcase. “Nowadays people go to a cumann meeting and they get out as quick as they can.”
The former TD Seán Ardagh admits that the party’s organisational structures are no longer adequate and that it is a big problem. Ardagh announced before the election that he would step down in Dublin South Central, where his party colleague Michael Mulcahy went on to lose his seat. He predicts the party will be “back strong enough to be a very significant force in any government” after the next election.
The former Wexford deputy Seán Connick, who was left trailing in the wake of the independent candidate Mick Wallace, strikes a more downbeat note about the party’s future. “Where to from here? Really the party has to have a complete rebirth and restructure.”
Fallon says: “We had the most successful electoral organisation on the face of the planet, but it became all about winning elections rather than being part of people’s lives. Fianna Fáil lost its way.”
