Fine Gael’s difficulties have been piling up of late. An embarrassing defeat in the recent referendums came after a series of opinion polls that showed the party stalling in advance of local and European elections. The decisions of many sitting Fine Gael TDs not to contest the next general election added to the party’s headaches and hardly suggested bounding self-confidence within the ranks. Nonetheless, the announcement by Leo Varadkar that he was stepping down as Taoiseach and party leader came out of the blue.
The insistence by the Government parties that this will not lead to a general election was as predictable as that from the Opposition that one is now needed. But even if we assume that a new taoiseach can be elected by the Dáil and that the coalition proceeds intact – not something that should be taken for granted – Varadkar’s announcement injects new uncertainty into the year ahead.
The conventional wisdom was that an autumn election was likely. That is now much less clear. A new Fine Gael leader could be tempted to go to the country earlier and hope to benefit from a general sense of renewal in the party. Alternatively, the new taoiseach may prefer to wait until February or March next year, aiming to have some policy successes to show for the first year in office. Events – an external shock, say, or a breakdown in trust within the coalition – could force the hand of the next leader. Whatever the date, the Government is entering its final lap.
Varadkar had obvious attractions to Fine Gael when he took over in 2017 as a young, policy-oriented leader with good communication skills. Along with Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan, he deserves credit for steering the country through the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis and for taking an unambiguous and generous stance in support of Ukraine war and its people.
The Government’s period in office has seen a notable recovery in the economy and the public finances and a particularly strong jobs market. Brexit was handled as well as it could have been.
However, the Government’s failure to tackle the housing crisis is its most significant failure. Record homelessness is a blight on this administration – and on this State. The Coalition is now showing some urgency on this issue, but Varadkar erred early in his term in not ensuring it received sufficient focus. Progress in the health service has been patchy and too slow, while we still await a serious inquiry into the Covid response.
Even if the precise reasons for Varadkar’s departure – and its timing – remain unclear, he is not leaving because everything is going well. No political leader does. He leaves the party facing into difficult European and local elections at a time when its morale is low and its electoral prospects uncertain. For Fine Gael, then, its choice of Varadkar’s successor has a great deal riding on it.