Events of the past week rank it with any of the famously turbulent periods in the past
AT THE launch of Bertie Ahern’s memoirs this week, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a number of political correspondents on the day he announced his resignation as taoiseach in April 2008. We wondered what would fill the many pages and hours of broadcast time absorbed in the previous months covering the Ahern controversies and speculating whether he would survive. One senior hack pointed out that experience had shown there would always be something.
How right he was. The 18 months since Ahern stepped down have been among the most dramatic ever in Irish politics.
Every generation likes to think that their times are the most interesting, but of course that is never the case. Earlier this week at the launch of the late Nuala Fennell’s memoirs, A Political Woman, there was much talk among the predominantly Fine Gael gathering about the dramatic politics in the early 1980s when Nuala served as a junior minister in Garret FitzGerald’s first government.
Indeed, though then a teenager, I recall them as also being eventful times in Fianna Fáil, with three elections and three heaves against Charles Haughey in 18 months. When I then offered the view that they were the most dramatic times in politics ever, my dad would respond “you should have been around for the Arms Trial”.
Nothing, therefore, is truly unprecedented in politics. That said, even benchmarked against historic precedents, it is clear we are currently living in interesting political times and depending on the Green Party today, they might get even more interesting.
In the last seven days alone we have witnessed the passing of the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the first fall of a sitting Ceann Comhairle and brinkmanship around the survival of the Government.
The manner of the ousting of John O’Donoghue was unedifying. For that he must carry much of the blame himself. However, the fact that he was not provided with an opportunity to state his case was wrong. Surely, it was not beyond the ingenuity of the party whips to design some forum – such as a public meeting of the Oireachtas Commission – where he could put his version of events and take questions. Such a process may not have changed the outcome but it would have been fairer and more dignified.
Eamon Gilmore’s initial ploy of seeking to convene a meeting of the party leaders was more about trying to outshine Enda Kenny and Brian Cowen than a genuine effort to ensure fair procedures. Gilmore’s decision to opt for what some of his supporters would like to see as a “John Wayne moment” on the floor of the house was wrong.
Calling for O’Donoghue’s resignation while he was constrained in the chair was certainly crowd-pleasing but ultimately unfair. It is easy to deliver a political punch when your opponent has his hands tied behind his back – especially if you have blindsided him as now published details of telephone calls between Gilmore and O’Donoghue would suggest.
Our politicians must now urgently reform their own expenses systems and get ahead of public anger on this issue. They need to pay themselves less, they need to vouch all claims and they need to publish full details in real time on the internet.
There is no reason to believe that the expenses regime in Ireland allows for anything as outlandish as some of the items claimed by Westminster parliamentarians under their second-home allowance. Nonetheless, in the absence of system reform the media appetite for political expenses stories will continue. Any delay in tackling this issue runs the risk of, at best, leaving our politicians and our media mired in a distraction while there are more important issues to be dealt with and, at worst, undermining entirely what confidence remains in our political system.
Another way in which confidence in our parliament could be raised or restored would be for Dáil Éireann itself to elect the new ceann comhairle rather than simply rubberstamping a candidate decided upon by the Government or agreed by party leaders. An election in which deputies would each have a free vote would give a real mandate to the next ceann comhairle, who could then better assert the independence of parliament.
While all this drama was going on in the chambers and corridors of Leinster House this week, in Government Buildings Fianna Fáil and Green Party negotiators have been diligently negotiating a revision of the programme for government. The talks have been long and at times tortuous, not least because Eamon Ryan and his team have to traipse back and forth to a reference group of party members and, on occasion, come back seeking to revisit what has already been agreed.
If raising the profile of the Green Party was one of their objectives when seeking this review of the programme for government they have certainly achieved that. While the Lisbon Treaty result and the Ceann Comhairle’s travails dominated the first half of this week, in the last few days all eyes have literally been on the Green Party membership. They are certainly enjoying the attention. For a group who were asked not to comment publicly on the negotiations, they have been very talkative. There must be few Green Party members who have yet to have their say on local or national media.
If they could only have engineered the same level of attention for their candidates for the local elections, the mood in the party mightn’t be so angry.