ANALYSIS:The Taoiseach should survive next week's vote in the Dáil but his reputation, on the floor after the bank reports, will suffer further damage
BRIAN COWEN is beginning to resemble a second World War bomber which has sustained massive flak damage on its latest mission but continues the journey back to home base.
Fianna Fáil people like to look upon Government Buildings as their home base and, given the length of time the party has been ensconced there, it is sometimes difficult to blame them.
Virtually nobody expects the Government to lose the vote of confidence in the Taoiseach at the end of the Dáil debate next Tuesday evening.
But the six hours set aside for the motion will result in several more volleys of flak being lodged into the Taoiseach’s fuselage. How long can he go on?
There is a tactical disagreement among opposition parties about the timing of the debate. We have all heard the slogan, “Labour must wait”, but on this occasion, Labour actually wanted to wait for a few days or even a week before tabling a motion of no confidence in Cowen.
However, Fine Gael sources describe how their leader Enda Kenny, having finished reading the Honohan and Regling-Watson reports on the banking crisis late on Wednesday night, was so outraged by their contents that he took an immediate decision to call for a no-confidence vote.
Fianna Fáil was somewhat on the back foot yesterday morning, when confronted with Kenny’s demand, but Tánaiste Mary Coughlan came back by announcing the usual Government counter-motion, expressing confidence in her leader.
This is a parliamentary device which enables the Government to give the opening speech as well as the summing-up at the end. In between, of course, we are going to hear a great deal of criticism of the Taoiseach, based on the findings of the two reports.
It is fair to say that the Opposition was not expecting to find so much material in these documents that could be used against the Fianna Fáil-Green coalition. A gleeful Fine Gael frontbencher predicted last night that the reports would still provide a source of ammunition for his party when the general election comes around.
Fine Gael permanently lives in hope that the Green Party will find a reason to jump ship, but Green sources ridiculed this yesterday, one of them even providing an impressively accurate impersonation of Enda Kenny’s style of oratory.
Nevertheless, Kenny’s initiative in putting down the motion will probably benefit him at a time when his image needed a boost and when slipping opinion poll ratings for his party have the potential to raise questions about his leadership.
Nor are the Independent TDs likely to rock the boat. Government policy in the past is at issue here, not its present approach and the main lesson Independents draw from history is that, for them, elections are a very risky business.
One of Labour’s arguments in favour of holding back on the no confidence motion was that it would, as one of the party’s TDs put it, allow more time for Fianna Fáil backbenchers to “stew in their own juice”.
Labour argues that tabling the motion at such an early stage was more likely to precipitate a closing of ranks and, indeed, at time of writing there was little sign of a backbench Fianna Fáil revolt.
So it can be fairly safely predicted that Brian Cowen will still be Taoiseach on Tuesday night and for some time to come. Pairing arrangements are to be cancelled but this is standard practice and there are no indications that it will affect the outcome.
Despite the rumblings, Cowen also looks like leading his party into the next general election. The most obvious alternative, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, is very highly regarded both inside and outside the party, but must be ruled out for the time being anyway because of health issues.
In most cases, confidence motions are a form of political theatre which are more about shaping and moulding public opinion than bringing about anyone’s downfall.
One issue on which the ruling coalition may reluctantly have to give way is its refusal to include government fiscal policy in the terms of reference for the Commission of Investigation that is to be set up on foot of the two banking reports.
Public opinion will find it hard to understand and even more difficult to digest that, under the draft terms of reference, the Commission is to investigate a whole range of matters involving banks and auditors and their business practices in the period 2003-2008 but government, or at least Fianna Fáil-PD, financial policy in the period will not be on the agenda.
It hardly needs to be said that no government likes to commission an inquiry into its own past errors but this is one issue where the Opposition, despite some criticism of its own previous economic prescriptions, has the potential to rally the citizenry to its cause.
In all the circumstances, the Dáil is unlikely to bring Brian Cowen’s career as head of government to an end next week: it seems only a general election can do that and the Government is clearly determined to hold on a bit longer in the hope that the public mood will somehow change in its favour. Do miracles happen? Well know between now and 2012.
Deaglán de Bréadún is a Political Correspondent