Ireland’s political parties: what they’re good for

The politics of negativity has always been popular in Ireland – it’s something all parties like to engage in. Particularly when they are in opposition.  Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party have all been guilty of attacking from opposition while not doing a whole lot differently in government.

Fianna Fáil has been lucky in this regard, however. Its electoral prowess in the past has ensured that long spells in government has made it a party of “do-ers” rather that just commenting from outside. For Fine Gael, which has been confined to opposition for most of its existence the problem is obvious: how do you avoid being negative while remaining an effective opposition party? Fine Gael’s greatest challenge has always been to prove that it has a valid reason for existence politically other than to be just against whatever Fianna Fáil proposes.  While this has, to some degree, served the party well – at least giving it a clear identity and raison d’être, the danger of the anti-Fianna Fáil approach is that while it can lead to short term gains it fails to position Fine Gael as a political entity in its own right, allowing Fianna Fáil to dictate the agenda and lead the debate. Additionally, it also causes the public to use Fine Gael as a protest tool when they are annoyed with Fianna Fáil governments rather than turning to Fine Gael as a result of political conviction –  something that has been borne out consistently in election patterns.

The party’s former leader Alan Dukes recognised this problem and during the 1980s he clearly saw this was not good for the country. Dukes understood the difficulties of government and had himself been a victim of petty opportunism from Fianna Fáil while it were in opposition. Devised under Dukes’s watch, Fine Gael promoted the ‘Tallaght Strategy’, an ideal that had two interlocking objectives: firstly to reduce petty politics and support necessary decisions for the country. Secondly, to provide Fine Gael with a long term strategic road map. The party might loose out good short term chances and power grabs, but as a result it would become policy driven and could argue an agenda on an equal footing with Fianna Fáil. The ideas was that the party would stand for something whether in or out of government. Sadly Dukes did not remain leader long enough to see what the effect of the strategy could have had for Fine Gael or, indeed, Ireland. It it tempting to think, however, that the future could have been very different.

As things currently stand, negativity in opposition is rife still in politics. Fianna Fáil did nothing to change that with the exception of the divorce referendum during its stint in opposition between 1994 and 1997. Calls for a referendum on the ‘partnership for peace’ were a striking example of Fianna Fái thinking one way in opposition then doing the opposite in government – when faced with reality.

In the last decade there have been few times that the opposition have sided with the government on any issue – and given our current circumstances we might think that that is a good thing. Surely the opposition would have done things differently? Well, not exactly. The opposition certainly did not agree with the government, but their reasoning was flawed.

Let’s face it democracy has one critical fault line running through it: the need to get re-elected. If we strip away all our moralising and face up to the fact that governments have in the past (and will always in the future) tried to give the people what they want, especially in the run-up to elections. The 1990s Rainbow Coalition had limited resources but their budget before the 1997 election was an obvious effort to buy an electorate. But is that so wrong? Fianna Fáil is now itself hugely unpopular – as a result of introducing policies that are not popular. And yet, the party was at the height of their powers when introducing policies that people wanted, so what is the lesson?

Let’s look at some of what was said over the years of the boom. In late November 2005, Labour’s Joan Burton was pressuring the government to honour its commitment to ensure 80 per cent of taxpayers only paid tax at the standard rate. There was no suggestion that such a policy was wrong or perhaps even dangerous in terms of managing the economy. By mid-2006 Burton was concerned at the impact of rising interest rates on mortgage holders and, like the government, she seemed unaware of the possibility of an impending collapse. Indeed, by 2007 Burton was drawing attention to the risk high inflation was posing to the economy and, as with the government, this was the focus of policy makers. While Burton criticised land speculation she was equally critical that the short supply of housing meant that, for example, a nurse could not afford to by a house in Dublin.

But what about the main opposition party, Fine Gael? It was definitely opposed to benchmarking, a consistency that now stands to its credit, but how this policy would have fared in coalition with Labour we will never know. Nevertheless, at least Richard Bruton can point to this as a major difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

Not everything is so rosy, however. In October 2004, Bruton was pushing for more benefits for PAYE workers in the form of tax band widening and tax credits. This was similar to government policy at the time. While he certainly focused on value for money, he also pushed for much larger expenditure in aid of families and those in poverty over and above what the government was doing. During the debates on the 2006 budget Bruton clearly was of the mind that tax reductions were insufficient and that the government had failed to remove enough people from paying tax at the higher rate. In fact, in February 2006 Bruton states that bad estimates have caused the government to bring in €3 billion too much in tax over three years and that this was an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer. Of the 2007 budget, Bruton said that the government would bring in an extra €1 billion in motor tax and other levies and that this should not be done. Bruton was adamant that the government was raising too much tax and should cut its cloth to suit people’s needs by reducing the tax intake. While Bruton pointed out the vulnerability of an over-reliance on property he failed to suggest alternate action. The government was of the same mind, continually recognising the danger in budget speeches but at a loss as to how to remedy it without damaging the economy.

Given those points it is clear that both benchmarking and large scale tax cuts and high spending would all have been on the opposition agenda had they been in government. No-one suggested alternate action on housing other than raising a concern. Indeed, in the 2007 general election parties rush to compete with each other on how to reform stamp duty. All the suggestions were based on the premise that the government did not need the money and all would have inflated the housing bubble further.

These days the negative attitudes continue: much of the argument is purely academic and the parties continue to try court favour with the public. But we would do well to remember that what the people want is not always the right thing. The government gave in to their desires during the boom, the opposition give in to their desires during a recession.  Sadly the winner is usually the guy who sides with the desire of the people over the economy.

Jonathan Fallon is a political consultant