No party knows what to do about the crisis

COMMENT

ANOTHER bad week for Fianna Fáil. But bad weeks and Fianna Fáil go hand in hand and have been joined together for the past three years.

There has not been a good week for Fianna Fáil since the general election result in 2007. And that came as an oasis in a vast desert. That also should have been a bad week for Fianna Fáil because the party actually lost seats in that election. But it held on to power and at the end of the day that is the be-all and the end-all of politics. Apart, of course, from those Fianna Fáil TDs who did lose their seats.
The opinion polls, of course, continue to tell us the same stories that we were told at the last local, European and by-elections – that this is the most unpopular government of all time and that Fianna Fáil are doomed no matter what election they face.
I do not believe that a change of government will make a blind bit of difference but I have come around to the view that, perhaps, a general election might clear the air.
I do believe that Fianna Fáil have been in power too long and have lost touch with reality. There is also a deep-felt anger out there as the vast majority of the people believe that Fianna Fáil caused the present mess and are incapable of getting us out of it.
So while there is no great confidence in a Fine Gael/Labour coalition, nobody can possibly blame Fine Gael or Labour for our economic woes. So there might be some grudging or reluctant support for an incoming Fine Gael/Labour coalition, as distinct from the almost universal hatred of the present coalition between Fianna Fáil, the Greens and Mary Harney.
I have to say that I am not really very much persuaded by my own argument because I believe that within a few months, Fine Gael and Labour are capable of arousing the same degree of anger that it took decades for Fianna Fáil to create.
So there you have it. We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don’t.
To think that none of this would have happened if Fianna Fáil had actually lost those extra seats they should have lost in and around Dublin but for a last-minute swing before the election. Then we would have had a rainbow coalition government composed of Fine Gael, Labour, the Greens and the PDs and Fianna Fáil would be poised to win an overall majority at the next election.
Instead, we have Fianna Fáil now on 23%, according to the latest Red C opinion in last Sunday’s Sunday Business Post  and poised to lose 30 or more seats whenever the election comes.
While politics is all about power, I must take the long-term view and say that this is a time to be in opposition and not in government. Oppositions can say and do or not say and not do whatever they like but governments are expected to act responsibly at all times.
So we had the spectacle of the Labour Party at their recent conference avoiding the burning issue of public sector pay. We heard Fine Gael this week on the one hand giving half-hearted support to the Government’s help in the Greek bail-out but on the other hand questioning it.
In other words, opposition parties have the luxury of running with the hair and hunting with the hounds. They know we have to cut back on public spending and they know we have to show solidarity with our European partners.
They can’t help themselves from taking delight at the Government’s – and the country’s – misfortunes. I am not accusing them of treason; after all, they are only acting as opposition parties will always act in such circumstances.
Though it is a pity that they are unable to sit down with the Government – or that the Government are unable to invite them to sit down together and adopt a unified approach to the economic crisis affecting our country.
How can anybody blame an angry garda or teacher or civil servant for withdrawing his or her labour if the main opposition parties are unwilling to explain to them that there is no alternative to the Croke Park agreement? Fine Gael and Labour know there is no alternative. They should go that little step further and say that in public in clear and easily understood terms.
If there is an alternative, I have not heard it yet. However, politicians are not the only people to indulge in pop economics. Many people in this country believe that David McWilliams is an expert when it comes to economic forecasting.
But one of the most influential economic magazines in the world, The Economist, does not agree with them. According to The Economist, some of McWilliams’s theories are just off the wall. It also dismisses his proposal that the Irish Government should suspend its participation in the euro, devalue its new currency and rejoin the euro at a later date as “plain potty”.
I am not saying that The Economist is right and that McWilliams is wrong. What I am saying is that if the economists do not agree, what hope is there that the politicians know what to do about the crisis.