The Government slogan “We are all in this together” has worked pretty well during the Covid-19 crisis by helping to generate widespread compliance with the lockdown measures. The big question is whether the same sense of national purpose can be sustained for the measures that will be needed to underpin the recovery.
There is no avoiding the fact that the country will suffer a serious reduction in income this year. There is a gaping hole in the public finances due to the vast extra spending required to tide people over the health emergency while there has also been a simultaneous collapse in tax revenue.
The real challenge of the months ahead will be whether this burden can be shared fairly across society or whether, as so often in the past, powerful vested interests will fight tooth and nail to protect their own interests regardless of the common good.
The long drawn out dance over government formation is a sign of how nervous the entire political system is about what lies in store. The fact that a number of parties have already opted for the easy life of opposition, rather than the demands of government, tells its own tale.
In a way it is hard to blame them because over the past decade Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Greens and the Labour Party have all taken a hammering from the electorate for the actions they took to steer the country back from the cliff edge of financial ruin. If the measures that actually worked to restore economic growth have taken such a toll on political parties, is it any wonder that some of them are dubious about going into government given the decisions that lie ahead.
Inspirational
Yet it is precisely because the challenge is so great that the effort to shirk responsibility is so disappointing. If politics is about serving the community, as all those involved in it claim, then there can be no more important goal than being in government at a time of national crisis. Inspirational leadership is now more important than ever to try to generate a national consensus about the way forward. It is even possible that the Irish public might respond in a positive way to those who step up to provide it.
Look at the way the public perception of Leo Varadkar has changed since the start of the health emergency. He lost the election in February after a dreadful campaign with what must have been the worst election slogan in Irish political history (“A future to look forward to”). He only remained in office in a caretaker capacity because the Dáil could not agree on an alternative.
Yet his assured handling of the health emergency has commanded wide public respect. His leadership generated a mood of national unity which ensured that the unprecedented lockdown measures were accepted and implemented. The contrast between him and the bumbling Boris Johnson, never mind the malevolent Donald Trump, has given the Irish people confidence that those in charge of the country know what they are about.
Maintaining that mood for the tough times ahead is going to be a monumental challenge for the political system. The agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to form a partnership government, almost 100 years after the Civil War that divided them, was an encouraging start.
Their joint framework document designed to entice other parties into government was less so. Its ambitious pledges for an expanded role for the State accompanied by commitments not to raise income taxes, made absolutely no sense given the scale of the task ahead.
Achievable
However, the two party leaders Micheál Martin and Varadkar have shown a greater degree of realism in their response to Green leader Eamon Ryan’s 17 key demands for opening coalition talks. They have accepted the importance of a number of the Green demands but have questioned how the 7 per cent annual reduction in carbon emissions can be met without resulting in widespread hardship and poverty.
It would certainly be a positive development if the Greens agreed to enter government on the basis of achievable goals on climate change linked to serious measures to improve biodiversity. It would give the government a secure majority while also reflecting the mood for change that influenced the outcome of the election.
The problem facing the Greens or any other party or group that agrees to join Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government is that they will need strong nerves to endure the inevitable assault from Sinn Féin and the hard left who will demand ever more public spending while opposing carbon taxes or other realistic revenue raising measures.
Mary Lou McDonald has already demanded that there be no return to “austerity” as if avoiding difficult decisions were a simple choice governments can make. As the economist Colm McCarthy put it succinctly during the financial crisis. “What the government is lacking is not compassion; it’s cash.”
Austerity is actually a meaningless slogan designed to create division and hinder rather than encourage debate. What the country needs now is the kind of political engagement that will encourage cooperation in politics and society in the difficult task of recovery when the health emergency is over.