A good point in an Irish Times piece on the Fine Gael National Conference by Harry McGee. He writes that:
What the conference dispelled were any doubts over him leading the party into the next election. And in part, he can thank the ghost at the Killarney conference; for George Lee’s name was not uttered once publicly in Killarney.
Isn’t that something? That the man who was most likely to… do something… despite crashing and burning in the most public way possibly could, barely a couple of months later be not merely gone, but…
In February, Lee’s departure could have ended Kenny’s reign. But before the Government parties could make any capital of Fine Gael’s implosion, they themselves were hit by a series of small scandals and resignations that back-footed them. The Lee affair is now almost forgotten.
In a way it provides a testament to the reality that political life is indeed like supertankers, making their way through the water, huge masses that change direction only slowly and with great effort. An individual, no matter how brilliant, or well-known, can deflect them, but usually only marginally. And Lee, hobbled from the start as much by his own expectations as the constraints of the job he took, hasn’t even managed that.
His departure has seen no significant attrition of the FG vote. No ramifications. No aftermath. He’s just… gone.
Although… although, reading Enda Kenny’s speech I couldn’t help but notice the following:
…[Indeed,] in Richard Bruton I know I have the right man to run the Department of Finance at this critical time for this country.
So different from the other fella, good old whatsisname.
And the Conference itself? Well, as has been characteristic of this era of Fine Gael, hardly earthshaking. Quite the opposite. The shambles of the New Era document has done little to dissuade those antagonistic to the Kenny regime of the error of their ways. The list system of last weekend is no more. What we seem to have is a Dáil that will be twenty members smaller… what larks, and a Seanad that will be 100% smaller. This may excite some, but most of us will wonder what the fuss is about, and, as noted last week, ponder on how much of even this will survive a coalition deal with Labour.
Although Kenny was attempting to boost the notion of single party government. That seems unlikely to happen, they’ll be doing well if they lift themselves above 70 TDs. And surely, surely they don’t believe that themselves? Because there’s a fair way yet to run with the current shower.
That said it is interesting to see them veer sharply from the economic consensus… I mean to say, veer even more sharply rightwards. For them, as expressed by Richard Bruton:
“The Government’s plans to take €3 billion out of the economy in 2011, mostly by cutting investment and raising taxes, is the wrong course. It will destroy many jobs and further damage competitiveness.
“Ireland would be better with a reforming budget that takes €2 billion out of the cost of running Government in 2011, €1 billion more than Minister Lenihan is proposing, and sets out a clear path for even greater cost-savings in future years but which avoids further cuts in investment or net tax increases.
Hmmm… so, let’s get this straight, ‘reform’ would see us eschew tax increases and cut further current expenditure? Well, I’m not sure how that’s going to fly. And although the Irish Time editorial is dubious about this from a more right of centre perspective…
Likewise, Fine Gael’s ambitious plans for economic regeneration raise some questions of affordability, at a time when the public finances are the big issue of the day. Much of what Fine Gael has proposed will be welcomed, but the party now needs to convince a sceptical public that its proposals can be financed without further borrowing.
…I’m curious as to what the cuts will be focused on. One thing we do know is that to fund a ’stimulus’ we could be waving farewell to state assets. Kenny himself said as much at the weekend.
This money will be raised from private equity, sale of State assets and investment from the European Investment Bank.
Although the jobs themselves have a familiar ring to them… I can’t help thinking that this list following has been delivered to us from a different source…A greener source.
These jobs will be in renewable energy, water quality and broadband. They will be delivered within Fine Gael’s first term in government and they will provide real opportunities for all people no matter what their age, and no matter what their trade or qualification.
But to be honest, what I find most interesting is his list of priorities…
That’s why, tonight, it’s important that each and every one of you know that my Fine Gael team has a clear plan to get us out of our current crisis of confidence.
THAT PLAN starts from five realities.
That we should never have ended up in this dire situation.
That Ireland’s downturn is more severe than other countries as a direct result of Fianna Fáil’s total failure to plan for the inevitable and for the future.
That international factors are compounding domestic mismanagement.
That Fianna Fáil has turned a manageable problem into a serious crisis.
And that whether it be in banking or politics, the people who got us into this mess will not be, and can not be, the ones to lead us out of it.
If we are going to turn this country around, we need real change. Our plan for that change is based on three pillars: 1. Getting our people back to work; 2. Revolutionising the health service; and 3. Reforming our political system.
That’s it? Those are the three pillars? It’s not that they aren’t in themselves important, but… there’s something a little detached from each other about them all. Reform of the political system is important, no doubt there at all. But somehow that doesn’t particularly seem to gel with health service ‘revolutions’ or dealing with unemployment. Or perhaps it is that there seems no overarching theme that links them together or particular ideological strand that runs through them. Now, for many of us coming from parties with specific ideologies, that’s a problem… but I also think that it’s a problem for Fine Gael.
This seems to be a technocratic approach, that on paper is fine, but in practice? Well, I compare and contrast with Gerry Adams speech a fortnight or so ago, which while no great shakes at least had the concept of the ‘Republic’, however amorphous and inchoate that might be, running through it. By contrast Fine Gael gives us three concepts to chew upon, and subsidiary aspects of each. There’s the New Politics… that’s the one dealing with political change. Then there’s NewERA, that’s the job creation strategy. And then we have health service reform, but no snappy tag or neologism there to assist us. So that’s not ‘New’, at least not in this conceptual stew.
And there’s no ‘New’ anything sitting above them and encompassing them. Perhaps, at one stage, there was a ‘New Republic’ term or something similar used and perhaps the SF Ard Fhéis, or the Irish Times series of articles last week, put paid to that. Or perhaps the decision was taken to use ‘Fine Gael’, mentioned so many times as to become utterly repetitive throughout the speech, and often with the word ‘government’ close at hand, just so we know. Or perhaps Kenny is entirely sincere when he argues that… ‘This country is finished with slogans and repeated photo opportunities.’
Except for the NewERA, and New Politics. Those terms/slogans, they’re clearly okay.
None of this is to say that the ideas are awful, but neither is it to suggest that they’re great. And maybe that’s the point. He may use the word ‘revolution’ in relation to healthcare, but we know that’s not going to happen, at least not in any fundamentally revolutionary fashion. He may talk about stimulus, but it’s not going to be a social democratic stimulus. He may indeed talk about a new sort of politics. But, fingers crossed – on his part, that would sit at the far side of a negotiated programme for government with Labour and a referendum. So no reason to panic yet (and by the by, entertaining to read that ‘Fine Gael is the party that set up the institutions of this State’… It’s not entirely incorrect but neither is it entirely correct)
And even where the language goes up a bit in pitch… well…
And now they want further sacrifices from taxpayers and mortgage borrowers. Unless there is a change of government, the banks will get what they want. There is no limit to what Fianna Fáil will do to protect their powerful friends. Did the Taoiseach not say . . . that whatever cheque is required will be written? Cheques written by Fianna Fáil come out of your pocket.
Fine Gael has a fundamentally different approach. Firstly, we won’t borrow further billions to bail out Anglo Irish Bank. We will use that money to start a new State National Recovery Bank. It will get credit flowing quickly to protect jobs and support business.
And secondly, there will be no whitewash. The current secrecy will not be tolerated. We will carry out a rigorous and open investigation to find out exactly why the banking scandal happened. We will hold people responsible, even if they are Ministers. We will open the books.
THERE MUST be a clear message to bankers. They will never be allowed to destroy our economy and our country again. Those who broke the law in pursuit of greed and reckless lending must face the consequences and, if the courts decide, they must be sent to jail.
Who… though, is seriously arguing otherwise at this point? And I seem to recall the ICC and ACC, both semi-state entities not so long ago, before they were privatised (natch!), fulfilled the function of this ‘new’ State National Recovery Bank. Which again, is not to say it’s a bad idea, it certainly isn’t. But to suggest that nothing terribly radical is being proposed, and if for some it seems like it is they either don’t remember our history, or that the sociopolitical dial has now been wedged so far right of centre that we’re truly in bad trouble.
In fact, there’s something a tad pro forma about all this. We’re a year or more out from an election. Fianna Fáil aren’t going anywhere soon, but neither are Fine Gael. They can afford to play the odd populist card. So why not? Say nothing that will rock the boat and lose some percentiles of the support already gained. And I wouldn’t blame FG or Kenny in the slightest for taking that approach.
