Ardfheis offers first real chance for delegates to decide if party leader is the right man for job, writes HARRY McGEE
FIANNA FÁIL held its last ardfheis at the end of February 2009. The economic tide had started to ebb then but the party did not seem overly concerned.
It was Brian Cowen’s first conference as leader but, unsurprisingly, he wasn’t going to shake anything up. The agenda and sessions were dominated by ministers and members hardly got a look in.
The themes were woolly and complacent: “Facing Challenges Together”, “New Directions on the Economy”, “Towards a safer, more secure Ireland”.
It was a government in cruise control, unaware of the calamity it faced ahead.Three years later, the atmosphere could not be more different from the hubris of 2009. Following its humiliating ousting last year, and with uncertainty over its very future, the mood is downbeat, practical, realistic. Launching its programme yesterday, justice spokesman Dara Calleary said it would be the most crucial for the party in its 86-year history.
The agenda reflects the new realities. The events of the weekend hover around reform, revision and painful surgery. Given the subsequent fate of his party, a Michael McDowell quote might not be the most appropriate. But his catchcry of “be radical or redundant” seems apt.
Thus, major organisational reforms are on the cards, most notably a one-member, one-vote system. Other measures are designed to bring in a swathe of young candidates unsullied by the Ahern years.
On Friday night, the party will revisit its definition of republicanism in an effort to widen it from being solely identified with the national question. Calleary yesterday promised nothing would be “stage-managed” and delegates would be free to speak their mind, even if it involved painful criticism.
The latest poll has shown strong support for Sinn Féin but continuing flatline support for Fianna Fáil (it seems calcified at 16 per cent since the election). The party isn’t unduly concerned. It is still in its period of sackcloth and ashes. Opinion polls so far out from elections are soft. Besides, its leadership says, most of its focus in the past year (as was with Fine Gael in 2002) has been on reorganisation.
Nonetheless it should not be complacent about the threat posed by Sinn Féin. Dublin is also a wasteland for it. The party knows deep down it has ceded territory, geographically and politically, that it will never fully recover.
There’s another possible fly in the ointment. All its best-laid plans could be usurped by an unhelpful publication of the planning tribunal report before the weekend, especially one that could be critical of Bertie Ahern. Michéal Martin’s speech, in those extenuating circumstances, would have to grasp the nettle of expulsion.
And on that subject, it will be a huge test for Martin’s leadership.
He is a new leader but there are critics (external and internal) who believe he has too much baggage to be the party’s Moses figure and who say he struggles to find the right tone.
In reality, the ardfheis will provide the first opportunity to make a real assessment of the party’s resilience, and whether or not Martin is the right person to lead it back to the promised land.