A milestone political year

COMMENT

THE political year gone by will be talked about for years to come. 2011 will be a major milestone in the history of our State.
For the first time since most of us were born, Fianna Fáil, the party that ruled over us for most of that time, was beaten into third place at the general election held early in the year. Fine Gael, also for the first time, became the biggest party in the Dáil. Labour also won a record number of seats and Sinn Féin made a major breakthrough.
Also, unbelievably, there are now more TDs on the Independent and smaller party benches than are in the Fianna Fáil section. We knew Fianna Fáil was going to be on a hiding to nothing but none of us could possibly have foreseen the extent of the rout.
Nobody can deny that Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin and the others had a fantastic election. But their victories were also due more to the public’s need to kick Fianna Fáil than to award the Opposition.
This reporter has been involved in elections for more than 50 years – a total of 16 general elections plus countless by-elections and local elections – but I have never, in all that time, seen such a hatred for a political party as there was for Fianna Fáil this time.
The Green Party, which went into Government with Fianna Fáil after the 2007 general election, was completely wiped out and now they have no members either in the Dáil or the Seanad. It is going to take them a long and a hard time to rebuild the party.
However, it is impossible at this juncture to say what the future holds for any of our political parties.
In the aftermath of the general election, which saw Fianna Fáil lose a massive 58 seats compared to the 2007 election, one could be forgiven for thinking Fianna Fáil had no future. The new leader, Micheál Martin, had lost most of his cabinet colleagues – Brian Cowen, Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey, Batt O’Keeffe and Mary Hanafin – and had to bring in a stock of new and inexperienced blood onto his front bench.
It was almost impossible for him to attack the new Government’s efforts to bring us out of the recession. After all, he could not deny that it was his party who were blamed for the recession and the new Government was merely following the same policies that Fianna Fáil had mapped out.
Things were so bad for Fianna Fáil during the year that they were unable to field a candidate in the Presidential election. Micheál Martin’s ham-fisted attempt to endorse Gay Byrne as somewhat of an unofficial Fianna Fáil candidate backfired on him and threatened to split the party.
Fianna Fáil was also traumatised by the untimely death of their deputy leader and spokesman on finance, Brian Lenihan. Mr Lenihan’s death in June reduced the party’s strength in the Dáil to 19 and left them without even one seat in the greater Dublin area.
The party’s overall performance was judged to be lacklustre since the election and they were eclipsed on the Opposition benches by spokespersons for Sinn Féin, the Independents and the smaller parties.
However, the tide may be turning. In the Presidential election, Sean Gallagher a former high-ranking member of Fianna Fail, and now the party’s “unofficial” candidate, won a massive 500,000 votes and would probably have won the Presidency but for a slip-up on television.
The Fianna Fáil candidate at the Dublin West by-election won a very respectable vote, while just before Christmas, a poll in The Sunday Times showed that Fianna Fáil, along with the other Opposition parties, had gained a lot of ground at the expense of Fine Gael and Labour.
So it is too early yet to dance on Fianna Fáil’s grave. The electorate is now so volatile that it might be Fianna Fáil who will be doing the dancing when the next elections come around.
For Fine Gael it was a mixed year but overall the party has to be happy. Enda Kenny was elected Taoiseach with the highest majority ever. They lost one seat during the year – that of Roscommon deputy Denis Naughten over the downgrading of the local hospital. However, there is no threat to Enda Kenny’s leadership. There will be other tough decisions to be made over the course of the next few years but those are matters for the future. The party had a disastrous Presidential election and also a very disappointing Dublin West by-election result. However, they can afford to lose more TDs as deputies shy away from other public spending cuts hitting more local services.
For Labour, it was also a mixed year. The party is, of course, in power with more seats than ever before but they lost three TDs since the election due to cutbacks in local services and overall budgetary decisions.
However, their candidate, Michael D Higgins, is in Aras an Uachtaráin, having gained more votes for the party in the Presidential election than ever before.
It was a good year for Sinn Féin, which has gained even more support since the general election on the back on a solid Dáil performance by some of its new deputies.
Overall, politics in Ireland is at a crossroads. A lot now depends on what is going to happen in Europe and elsewhere during the coming year. Decisions taken abroad may decide the future of our political parties at home.