Inter-party unity, a must going forward

COMMENT

WHERE there’s a will, there’s a way but when it comes to consensus politics in this country, there ain’t no will… so there ain’t no way.

Sure enough, the financial spokesmen and women for each of the Opposition parties agreed to look at the books in the Department of Finance. Well, they couldn’t very well refuse, could they? Pat Kenny was able to tell us on his radio programme on Monday morning before they ever went in or came out that they were all going to say after seeing the books that the financial situation was far worse than they thought it was.
Of course they obliged. They pretended they were shocked at the “challenging” figures revealed to them.  Arthur Morgan, however, didn’t see anything to change the Sinn Féin tune: that there is no need to take drastic steps so fast, no need to cut back on spending so severely within such a short period as four years.
Fine Gael and Labour are basically in agreement with Fianna Fáil and the Greens, that we need to cut the deficit by 3% of GDP by 2014. The Government and the two main Opposition parties have agreed on the target. The chances, however, of getting them to agree on how to achieve that target is where the problems are going to arise.
Fine Gael frontbench spokesman Leo Varadkar has already spelled out Fine Gael’s position when he spoke at an economic seminar in Kenmare at the weekend. His party, he said, would back the Government’s four-year plan but they would not be bound by the detail. The devil is going to be in the detail. 
We already knew what Fine Gael’s attitude would be when Enda Kenny told us that while national unity or consensus might be good for the country, it would not be good for Fine Gael. Eamon Gilmore dismissed the whole idea as “phoney”.
It is to their credit that the leaders of unionism and republicanism in the North of Ireland were not so dismissive of the peace process when first approached about it all those years ago. 
There is far less dividing our political leaders down here than divided Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams. If Paisley could put 400 years of history to one side and sit down and agree the future with Adams then surely Cowen and Kenny can postpone their petty disagreements. If there’s a will, there’s a way. Anything is possible if they want to do it.
However, the main problem is not the financial problem but the fact that party is more important than country here. 
As I have pointed out, I do not believe the party spokespeople were that shocked when they saw the books in the Department of Finance last Monday. Even the dogs in the street knew for some time that we were already up the creek. We all knew that if the Government did not take drastic action in the Budget in seven weeks’ time and did not announce the intention to take further drastic action over the next four years, those who are lending money to us now would refuse to do so in the future.
In other words, whatever Government is in power will have no money to pay our teachers, our nurses, our gardaí. If your chimney goes on fire, there will be no fire brigade to come and put it out.  Rubbish will pile up on the streets and there will be no money to pay our old-age pensioners or the unemployed.
This is the reality. All the parties know that. So national consensus is a no-brainer. To actually do what needs to be done, as distinct from talking about what needs to be done, is going to be extremely difficult because the Opposition will attack every measure that needs to be taken by the Government.
I am not talking about the present Government or the present Opposition. The present Government are not going to be in power for much longer and within a few months or a year, Fine Gael and Labour will have the same problem, as they will be in power then.
What is meant by national consensus in the present context is basically that the Opposition should make it as easy as possible for the Government to get the Budget through in early December. When Fianna Fáil go into Opposition, they must help Fine Gael and Labour to get their budgets through in the following years.
That will not be easy in a country where cute-hoor politics has been the norm over the years. We are now in a crisis situation. We have not experienced anything like this since the Emergency years from 1939 to 1945, when we were afraid to wake up every morning to find that the country had been invaded during the night.
There is no time now for “politics as usual”. I can understand the fear in Fine Gael and Labour that Fianna Fáil are going to get off the hook if there is national consensus now.
Let them put the national interest first and Fianna Fáil’s day of reckoning can be put off for a little while yet. 
The important thing is to get our (and by that I mean we, the people) agreement on what needs to be done. We are not going to agree unless our political leaders agree. If the Government falls on the Budget, I believe we will be in more serious trouble than ever because the international markets will not believe that we have the will to do what needs to be done.
It will not simply be enough for the Government to say to the Opposition, “This is our Budget and we want your agreement”. They must all sit down together, make compromises and eventually come up with a detailed plan about how to get us out of the mess we are in.
If they are willing they will find a way. And if they don’t, the IMF will.