FROM THE ARCHIVES:Finance Minister John Bruton's budget 30 years ago was defeated by a single vote over taxing clothes and shoes, bringing down the six-month-old Fine Gael-Labour government. Olivia O'Leary described the moment of truth.
JIM KEMMY walked to the top of the steps, his broad back turned to the Chamber. Eighty pairs of eyes bore into that back from the Government side and sharpened to knives as he turned to the right, Terry Leydon’s hand on his arm, and walked through the Fianna Fáil lobby.
The white paper in his hand was his budget shopping list for the Government. The Government didn’t deliver. Food subsidies, tax on clothes, capital taxation, the service wasn’t good enough.
Just before the vote (bathos of all bathos) on beer prices, Garret FitzGerald [Taoiseach] knelt up on the bench in front of Kemmy arguing, gesticulating, probably pleading. Kemmy looked steadfastly down at the paper in front of him, his thick glasses casting shadows on the gloomy face.
The Fianna Fáilers sniggered at FitzGerald and he jumped back to a sitting position, grinning like a guilty schoolboy. The game was up.
Once Noel Browne [Independent] had moved determinedly through the Government lobby, and all four Independents and [Charlie] McCreevy had sloped to the other side, Fianna Fáil hugged itself with anticipation.
Then, leaping down the steps like the boy who knows the tuck shop is open, came Opposition whip, Raphael Burke waving the winning vote. He shook hands with [Charlie] Haughey and handed his paper to the Ceann Comhairle. Fianna Fáil roared when the vote was announced: for, 81, against, 82. Dessie O’Malley giggled. Haughey barely allowed a smile.
FitzGerald, pale, stood up and muttered that he would go to the Park and ask the President to dissolve the Dáil. He was stunned. So was Michael O’Leary
Fianna Fáilers chuckled, and then paused, and supposed an election was a good thing. Maybe, they said, the President would ask Charlie to form a Government? But, of course, they could win an election, they declared, particularly since Fine Gael and Labour would have to go to the country on that budget: reduced food subsidies, tax on clothes, on drink, on short-term welfare payments.
FitzGerald was closeted upstairs, waiting to go to the Park. “He’s very calm,” insisted Liam Hourican , as though speaking of a borderline patient.
The Independents were having their day. “Well done, Neil,” said Ray McSharry to Blaney, who pulled on his pipe and smiled.
Microphones surrounded Kemmy. “I warned Garret FitzGerald about this. When I say something I mean it, and maybe there are a lot of people around here who know that now.”
Indeed they do. Indeed they do.