Varadkar no longer a novelty in Irish politics but still a focus of Fine Gael’s fortunes

Buoyed by the prospect of Leo Varadkar’s return to the taoiseach’s office in less than a month’s time, and relieved beyond measure by the decisions of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) to clear him in the infamous case of Leo the Leak, Fine Gael meets in Athlone on Saturday for its ardfheis in considerably better shape than it was six months ago.

Party members at all levels of the organisation, many of whom were deeply pessimistic about their fortunes at the start the summer, now say that their mood and that of the party has been transformed. But will all this newfound optimism survive when it collides with political reality?

The party had been on a bad run in the polls since the Government was formed, with support dropping to its lowest level in nearly 30 years in an Irish Times poll last July. Varadkar’s personal rating, which once upon a time reached Bertian altitudes, had slumped. But since the summer, the Tánaiste’s exoneration and a well-received budget has been followed by an uptick in support, completely transforming the party’s sense of where it’s at. And now the taoiseach’s office beckons.

“We had to vote for a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach after a bad election,” says one TD, who was among those grumbling a few months ago. “Now we’re going to vote for a Fine Gael taoiseach. So that does have an effect.”

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Recent difficulties for Sinn Féin, especially the conviction of former councillor Jonathan Dowdall, have put a further pep in their step. You can even see in it the attitude of Fine Gael deputies in the Dáil chamber – they are less cowed by the massed ranks of Sinn Féiners opposite, more willing to take them on, more confident in making the case for their party and the Government.

“There’s a sense that the Shinners are on the rack a bit,” says one senior party source. “They’re not invincible. They can be taken on.”

It is the decision not to prosecute Varadkar, and the subsequent dismissal of a complaint to Sipo, the State’s ethics watchdog, that party sources most often cite as the catalyst for the change of mood. It’s evidence of how much the party is still invested in its leader.

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The cloud that lifted when the DPP said it would not be prosecuting him for the leak of a Government document containing details of a proposed new contract for doctors back in 2019 led to a palpable change in him, according to people with regular contact with Varadkar. “It was weight lifted from his shoulders,” says one colleague. Several others used the same term.

The time when Varadkar was thought an exotic novelty in Irish politics is long past. He is no longer – as some of his more excitable supporters would once have had it – a new type of leader who embodied a new Ireland; after a more than a decade at the top table of Irish politics and five years after he first became taoiseach, Varadkar has the scars on his back that politics inevitably leaves. He was once regarded as somehow different from other politicians, a precious political advantage in an anti-political age.

Those days are gone. But he is still the focal point around which his party’s fortunes revolve – if he makes a success of his second stint as taoiseach, he may join that select band of people elected three times to the State’s highest political office. If he does not, his party will suffer grievous and lasting damage.

And yet, while it is indisputable that the mood in the party has improved, there is not quite as much evidence as Fine Gaelers would have you believe for the notion that there has been a dramatic recovery in its fortunes. There have been a few okay polls; the party and its leader are no longer at record lows. But what matters in polls is the trend, not the figures of a single month, and Fine Gael is certainly not out of the woods yet.

Moreover, such recovery as there has been almost certainly owes more to the massive giveaway budget as it does to Varadkar. The Tánaiste’s relief is important for Fine Gaelers; but for the general public beyond the party, it is the budget that affects their daily lives, and therefore political perceptions. The public is a lot less Varadkar-centric than the party.

“The budget has settled an awful lot of people,” says one experienced backbencher. “People see us as competent and capable on economic management. Maybe we’re not popular, but people see we get the job done.”

“It’s the budget,” says one of the shrewder party handlers. “You can see it in the polls but also the TDs can feel it when they’re in their constituencies.”

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In the weeks after the budget, Fine Gael went on a hard sell of the budget around the country, organising canvasses and leaflet drops to drive home the message that the party deserved the credit for looking after “the people who get up early in the morning” – the old Varadkar signal to aspirational voters which has been rediscovered in recent months.

There was plenty to trumpet – the €11 billion budget saw money being channelled from a bulging exchequer (thanks largely to bumper corporation tax receipts) to people at all income levels, a process which continues with weekly reminders from the Government about its munificence – on Thursday, it was Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris signing off on a nearly €700 early Christmas present for recipients of third-level grants. On Friday it was Heather Humphreys announcing that her department would help pay the electricity bills of parish halls and community centres across the country. There’s plenty more where that came from.

But the Government’s resources are not unlimited. And with the economy slowing – perhaps actually entering recession – the forces of fiscal gravity will reassert themselves at some point. They always do. Throwing money at problems won’t be possible forever. The Government, led by Varadkar, may face tougher budgetary choices than those faced by Micheál Martin’s Cabinet. It’s easy to imagine tensions between the taoiseach’s office and the more cautious instincts of Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath in the departments of public expenditure and finance.

Despite the outbreak of optimism in Fine Gael, Varadkar will be leading a government that faces very significant challenges – not least in housing, but also in managing the refugee crisis, the cost of living and the wobbles in the tech sector that are causing mandarins in the Department of Finance to look nervously at their revenues from corporation tax.

Varadkar will also have to maintain the unity of ogvernment as a general election approaches and the two big parties of the Coalition prepare to fight each other for votes. That is a prospect causing some considerable unease in Fianna Fáil – and also in his own party, if the truth be told. It may very well be an impossible task. But as taoiseach, it will fall to Varadkar.

“We like to think we’re the party that Ireland turns to in a crisis,” says one Minister. This is the sort of things that goes down well at Fine Gael meetings, but not so well with the public. His own party will cheer him this weekend no matter what he says. But Varadkar’s challenge tomorrow, and for the next two years, will be to speak to the latter group.