And what a week it was…

IT was another miserable week for the people of Ireland. Countless numbers were left homeless and flooding caused millions of euros worth of damage. Our appeals for fair play in sport fell on the deaf ears of international soccer authorities. And the recession bit deeper, as tens of thousands of public sector workers went out on strike in protest against further threatened pay cuts.

It was also another terrible week for Fianna Fáil, as the latest Red C opinion poll in the Sunday Business Post showed Fine Gael now leading Fianna Fáil by a massive 13%.
So it was a good week for Fine Gael, with the prospect of better weeks to come. According to the poll, Fianna Fáil is languishing at 23% and destined to lose seats all over the place, while Fine Gael on 36% confirms what all the opinion polls and the real polls we had during the summer have shown – that Fine Gael is firmly in the driving seat and now looks unshakeable.
With a tough and extremely unpopular Budget to come in early December, Fianna Fáil do not seem likely to bridge that gap in the foreseeable future, or even in the long term with other hair-shirt budgets to follow next year and for the next three or four years.
If Fianna Fáil can take any comfort at all, it is in the fact that they are in power and Fine Gael has to be satisfied with Opposition. But that is very poor consolation.
Fianna Fáil has seldom had to take the tough decisions. Power is great when times are good but in days like these, they might prefer to be on the Opposition benches and let Fine Gael and Labour take the blame for the poor state the economy is in. But with the Greens on board, the Government should be able to get the Budget through the Dáil in two weeks’ time. There might be some rumblings from the Fianna Fáil backbenches but with the latest opinion polls showing the party on a hiding to nothing, they will be very slow to do anything to precipitate an election where their seats might be in jeopardy.
So Fianna Fáil’s only chance will be to hang in there as long as possible, hope the economy improves in the meantime and that by the time the election comes around, the people might have got over their anger and just might give Fianna Fáil enough votes to form a government once again.
Of course, that is a forlorn hope. But the reality is that an early election would certainly cost Fianna Fáil power and a lot of seats. Nobody knows for sure what might happen in June 2012 – if the Government can manage to stay together until then.
The task for Fine Gael now is to build on the 36% support shown in the opinion poll if they want to get an overall majority. Such an achievement seemed to be an impossible dream less than a year ago.
On 36%, they should be able to form a government with Labour but their goal should be to aim even higher. It should be remembered that Fine Gael got over 36% of the vote before and failed to gain power. That was at the first election in 1982, when the party had 37% of the vote. However, in those days, Fianna Fáil had little trouble in getting around 45% or 46% of the vote. The chances of Fianna Fáil getting anything like that kind of vote now are very remote indeed.
But there is no guarantee that Labour will be in power if Fine Gael is the biggest party but need a partner. Fine Gael might very well only need a minor party to form a coalition. Why, if they do not need them, would Fine Gael go into partnership with Labour, to whom they would have to give five or six seats in cabinet? Better to go into partnership with a smaller party like the Greens or, dare we say it, Sinn Féin, if they have to surrender only one or two Cabinet seats.
But those are questions we cannot answer now. It will all depend on the figures thrown up at the election. The betting now would certainly be on a Fine Gael/Labour coalition after the next general election. But don’t rule any alternative arrangement out completely.
The last poll showed a drop in Labour support and that is not easy to explain. Easier to understand is the small increase for Sinn Féin in the poll. Sinn Féin’s latest plan to save billions is geared towards winning friends and offending few.
Sinn Féin believes we can get that kind of money by taxing the well-off, rather than by cutting back on public sector pay or public services.
Apparently, some 160,000 people earn between €100,000 and €1 million each year. They would not miss losing an average of an extra €1,000 to the Revenue Commissioners. But that would only bring in about €160m. A good sum of money, but far from the billions needed.
The wealthy would need to pay an average of about €10,000 extra each to Revenue to put any kind of a decent dent in the €4 billion required.
But remember, the bulk of those earning over €100,000 per annum are earning less than €200,000. Which means, you would really have to screw those earning the higher figures in order to get what you wanted.
Perhaps that is possible. But the economists in general argue against that. Perhaps there is a worldwide conspiracy among economists to keep taxation down. But they say that if you really squeeze the wealthy so that they feel real pain, you will drive them out of the country.
I don’t know. I would like to believe that it is possible to get what you need by coming down hard on the rich, rather than by cutting back on social welfare, health and education.
It would certainly be the most popular thing to do. And it would be an easy answer to our economic shortfall. But I have a feeling that it might be too good an answer to be true.