The intricate process of forming the next government is getting into swing, with cloistered teams starting to draw up the blueprint for the next administration despite uncertainty over the exact configuration of the next coalition.
With an intensification of the talks likely before Christmas, there has been a concerted effort among participants to minimise any leaks from their discussions. This is not unusual.
In 2020, the talks between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were marked by multiple threats — and actual instances — of walkouts, which had to be defused as they went along, although little if anything made it into the public domain.
Recalling those talks, one former negotiator was still miffed last week over how the Greens were “walking out over the most minor f***ing things” before a deal was finally struck shortly before 4am on June 14th, 2020, more than four months after election day.
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Paul O’Brien, an adviser to the Fine Gael leader and later taoiseach Enda Kenny from 2007-2017, who was involved in talks in 2011 and 2016, says the format of such discussions depends on the participants.
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Established parties have backroom teams who have been heavily involved in drafting their manifestos and can make progress on a lot of issues, with the significant differences kicked up to the political negotiators.
He says this is not the case for Independents, noting the 70-day negotiating period in 2016 before a Fine Gael minority government, supported by the Independent Alliance and backed by a confidence and supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil, was formed.
A “tried and tested” process between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can give a quick agreement between those parties, who he says can then negotiate as a bloc. Ultimately, says O’Brien, “key policy and ideological debates” should be met head-on.
Knotty issues, if kicked to touch, “can be much harder to solve in the white heat of a political crisis later on”, he adds, given the programme for government ultimately needs to be a “contract that binds the parties”.
An initial meeting between Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin on Monday was followed by direct engagements between their teams and dialogue with Independent TDs.
Many of the principal negotiators in the larger parties have been out of the country on official business this week, with Jack Chambers, Paschal Donohoe, Helen McEntee and James Browne all travelling to Brussels for various ministerial duties.
McEntee and Chambers agreed on a framework for the talks last Tuesday, with background engagement going on as teams work their way through the respective manifestos and try, as one negotiator put it, to “find as much common ground and build it up”.
Early engagements have not been fractious, sources involved are at pains to insist, but it is also the case that the first forays are unlikely to focus on the tricky stuff — there’s likely to be much agreement around uncontentious areas like foreign affairs.
The real unknown is what the third leg of the governmental stool may look like. Labour on Friday said it was “unlikely” to enter government but was not yet pulling out of the process. The Social Democrats remain involved despite climate, housing and personal tax considered as stumbling blocks within the party.
Between them, Fianna Fáil (48 TDs) and Fine Gael (38 TDs) are just short of a majority in the expanded 174-seat Dáil. This means a third grouping, be it non-party deputies or a smaller party, will be needed to provide safety in numbers for the next administration.
While the two big parties are comparing notes, efforts to sound out the Independents and keep up dialogue with the smaller parties are “as important a parallel process as what we’re doing”, said one senior source.
An “intensification” is expected next week, before the Christmas break but it is only once the third part of government is identified can decisions be finalised. However, there is a hope that if the way is cleared for Independents to take up sole custody of the third leg of the stool, things may move more quickly than had been anticipated.
Both parties feel that by early January, large parts of a programme for government can be nailed down.
“Next week and the week after Christmas will be the key weeks to bring parts of it to conclusion,” said one negotiator.
Nonetheless, experience suggests there will be brinkmanship. One source involved in 2016 negotiations with Independents recalls Michael Fitzmaurice, then of the Independent Alliance, bailing from the talks at the last minute and concessions that had been agreed on turf-cutting at his behest being cut from the programme for government five minutes before it was printed.
Despite a determination to limit the drama, the offshoots of backroom deal-making are visible. Nowhere is this more clear than the wrangle over the ceann comhairle’s position. The received wisdom was that outgoing speaker Seán Ó Fearghaíl of Fianna Fáil was favourite to be re-elected, having been approached to run again despite signalling his intention not to. The thinking among those who favoured him, which included senior figures, was that a steady hand on the parliamentary tiller was needed in the next Dáil.
However, on Monday of last week, the Kildare South TD was approached by people involved in the talks and told that the position may have to go to an Independent candidate as part of a deal to bring them on board and that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs would have to vote for it. The chosen Independent candidate, Verona Murphy, is a deeply polarising figure for many backbenchers in those parties.
It’s a view shared at grassroots level, where councillors from both parties in Wexford are concerned about a government that involves Murphy in any way, while senior TDs are also worried about the position being used as a bargaining chip in a manner that erodes moves to make it less party political in recent years.
As of Friday, Murphy, Ó Fearghail and Fianna Fáil’s Carlow-Kilkenny TD John McGuinness were declared candidates, with Sinn Féin also set to put forward a nominee.
A solution will have to be found to avoid the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vote being split. While the role garners no policy-setting power, a significant degree of political attention is now focused on who will be the next ceann comhairle as the wider game of coalition formation plays out.
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