INSIDE POLITICS:Deep economic uncertainty is likely to challenge Fianna Fáil's near dominance over Irish politics, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
THE CRITICAL question raised by the findings of the Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll is how a Government that has clearly lost the confidence of the people can implement the range of draconian measures so badly needed to avert a financial and economic catastrophe.
The country is locked into a position of having a Fianna Fáil-Green Coalition that has more than three years of its term to go but has little popular support for its policies. There is a real danger that it could become a zombie government, secure in its Dáil majority but incapable of doing what needs to be done.
The poll contains a series of staggering findings. The collapse in the Government’s satisfaction rating from a respectable 48 per cent last May to a record low of just 14 per cent in eight months is just one indicator of the political earthquake that has occurred. Obviously Fianna Fáil’s slide into third place behind Fine Gael and Labour is another.
What is almost as incredible are today’s findings which indicate that a large segment of the public still hasn’t remotely grasped the scale of the crisis, despite the jobs haemorrhage, and believes that there is a soft alternative to serious spending cuts or steep tax increases. The heart of the matter is that the voters are simply unwilling to accept tough medicine from the politicians they perceive to have caused the problem in the first place. Whether they would be any more inclined to accept it from an alternative government is a moot point, but the Coalition has simply lost its credibility.
The loss of confidence in our rulers has happened at the same speed as the downturn, with which it is so closely linked. It began with the Government’s ineffectual Lisbon campaign and was followed by the failure to get a firm grip on the economy last summer. The 2.5 per cent pay round to the public service in September was followed a month later by another pay deal which showed the Government didn’t have a clue how to cope with the collapsing public finances.
The effort to unwind those two huge policy errors resulted in a deeply unpopular budget and the more recent public service pensions levy. If the pay rises had not been so rashly agreed in the first place, a lot of grief might have been avoided although, in truth, the root of the problem goes back to the disastrous benchmarking exercise of 2002. As if the problems with the public finances were not bad enough, the escalating banking crisis also landed at the Government’s door. In hindsight, the decision to base public policy on the perceived need to rescue Anglo was a disastrous political move. The subsequent revelations about the behaviour of Anglo has done enormous damage to the banking system and in turn undermined the Government’s credibility.
The public perception of a rogue bank that catered for the country’s property speculators being bailed out by its friends in Fianna Fáil has fed the mood of suspicion about the motives for the guarantee and the subsequent nationalisation. The poll shows most people believe the bank should have been allowed to go to the wall and it is hard to argue that things would have been worse if it had.
There are four months to the European and local elections and there is no reason to believe things will get better for the Government. Just like Irish banks’ shares, every time Fianna Fáil gets to a new low, people think it can’t get any worse, but it does.
The outcome of the elections in June will provide a real benchmark for Fianna Fáil. It will be the ultimate test of whether strong personalities at local and European constituency level can pull in a significantly bigger vote than the party name on its own. That will provide a more solid guide to the party’s prospects in the next general election.
Many in the party regret the third consecutive election victory in 2007. It was compared to John Major’s unexpected victory in Britain in 1992 which was a disaster for the Tories at the next election.
A more terrifying comparison for Fianna Fáil is the fate of the Canadian Conservative Party under Brian Mulroney who saw his personal poll rating plummet to just 11 per cent over his handling of the economy. Although he resigned as leader on the brink of the 1993 election, Canada’s oldest party was destroyed, dropping from 151 seats to just two. The lesson of Major and Mulroney is that the longer an unpopular government soldiers on, the worse the result is likely to get.
The sudden arrival of deep economic uncertainty, with mass unemployment and falling real incomes, is going to test all traditional institutions. The near total dominance of Fianna Fáil over Irish politics since 1932 is likely to be challenged in a manner not seen before and there is no knowing what the outcome will be.
Their junior Coalition partner, the Green Party, is also facing a test that could endanger its survival. There are worrying signs in the poll that the party could face a wipe-out in the next election due to its involvement in the Coalition, with 85 per cent of its supporters dissatisfied with the Government’s performance, while three-quarters of them would like to see a change of Government.
While the party’s two Ministers and one junior Minister give every indication of being willing to stay in Government for the long haul, there must be a question mark over whether the party can survive the experience.
One option would be to pull out of the Coalition on a key issue and try to get involved in an alternative coalition or go to the country. Either would be a high-risk strategy. The only certainty is the crisis is going to put enormous strain on the political system.