Pat Leahy: Fianna Fáil will remain pivotal in politics despite discontent

The time when most of Irish politics revolved around Fianna Fáil is gone for ever, but the life of the party – its trials and tribulations, successes and disasters, its personalities and culture – all still make for fascinating study. Moreover, while the party no longer dominates the political landscape, it will still find itself in a pivotal position for the foreseeable future. The choices it makes in the next few years will be decisive in shaping the future politics of Ireland.

The mood at the party’s think-in this week in Mullingar was one-part upbeat resolve about the immediate future – it is about to deliver a large giveaway budget, which it loves doing, but in very difficult circumstances, which it does not – and one-part near-existential dread about the medium-term future. Unless things change we are finished, one senior party figure worried. At the same time, he thought the Government was doing rather a good job, actually. Other examples of this kind of dual-thinking abounded. We are really beginning to make a difference on housing, one TD insisted. Young people will never vote for us because they can’t get their own houses, said another; we have lost them to Sinn Féin, for at least one election.

You can see where they’re coming from.

But the truth is probably that things are neither going as well as Ministers insist or as badly as some of the backbenchers fear. The Government navigated the pandemic and presided over a remarkable economic bounce-back, but the social problems caused by a lack of far-sighted planning on a range of fronts – housing is only the most obvious – are wreaking political damage on the three-party administration.

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Of course, far-sighted planning is often not very popular with voters – ask the Greens about climate change and renewable energy if you doubt that – but political leadership entails finding a way to make the necessary doable.

Party think-ins and Dáil debates signal start of political season

Listen | 40:55

Party think-ins have been happening, a cost of living crisis is raging and the Dáil is back today - so there is lots to discuss. Harry McGee and Pat Leahy join Hugh to talk about Sinn Féin's positioning, the cost of living package being prepared by the government, failing to meet climate commitments and the opportunity for Liz Truss to take control presented by the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Under pressure

It is true that some polls paint a gloomier picture. Irish Times opinion polls tend to show that support for Fianna Fáil – and for the Government as a whole – has declined since the general election, but not catastrophically so. You can take your pick. The Government is certainly under pressure but not irrevocably doomed. Whether you view the glass as half-full or half-empty, it has the same amount of wine in it.

But things are moving for Fianna Fáil; politics by its nature is kinetic. The party is approaching a highly significant staging post at the end of this year after which, shorn of the megaphone and prestige of the taoiseach’s office, it will enter a new phase in which decisions on two big issues will loom large in the middle distance.

The first will be how and when it changes its leader. It is possible that Micheál Martin will lead his party into the next election. It is even possible − though unlikely − that Martin believes he will. But few of his TDs think so. If they are right, that means that a change of leadership will occur sometime between December of this year and the next general election, which must take place before February 2025.

It is not being unkind to those who will form the ranks of the contenders to say a successor is not, at this stage, immediately apparent. Darragh O’Brien’s chances of leading the party hang on the success of a housing plan on which the jury remains out; Jim O’Callaghan, oft-cited as the likeliest prince across the water, has never served in any ministerial office; Dara Calleary is well-liked but similarly untested in Cabinet. Colleagues at the think-in noted that Michael McGrath has at last begun to sound like a prospective leader, though his low-key style will not help in a political discourse likely to become more, not less, shouty. It would be fair to say that any of these contenders will have a job on their hands to outdazzle Leo Varadkar and Mary Lou McDonald in a three-way election debate.

Leadership contest

The leadership contest, when it comes, will not be able to escape the second question facing Fianna Fáil: does it want to be in government with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin after the next election?

Yes, yes, of course, that’s not what the leadership contest will be all about. And in the next general election the party won’t be ruling either option in or out, as it did before. But the current structure of Irish politics means that the party will not be able to avoid the Sinn Féin question.

The next election will not, however much Varadkar wants it, be simply a two-horse contest between Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. Irish voters relish the array of choices they are always presented with too much for that. But the scattered nature of the non-Sinn Fein left-wing vote means that a left-wing government led by Sinn Féin remains, at this point, an unlikely prospect.

So there is a strong likelihood that, of the governments possible afterwards, one contains Sinn Féin and the other contains Fine Gael. In that case, if the numbers work out, Fianna Fáil becomes the kingmaker. What will it do? An intense discussion awaits.

In two weeks’ time, the party grassroots will gather in the RDS for the first post-Covid ardfheis. It will be an opportunity to take the pulse of the wider party − as opposed to just the parliamentary party − and its views on a variety of issues.

As well as a hero’s welcome for Micheál Martin, you can expect the contenders to be on manoeuvres. And lots of chat about Sinn Féin.