Putting Fianna Fáil in bed with Sinn Féin

It’s not as if the Labour Party did not have enough problems already. But the rejection by the unions of the new Croke Park agreement piles trouble upon trouble for the Government and particularly for Labour.

 

One would think that a party with so many former trade union leaders at the top would have a better idea of how far they might push the unions. But it just goes to show how far removed from reality they have become since they went into government with Fine Gael.

The worst thing they could do now would be to force the public service workers to take pay cuts through legislation. So it’s back to the drawing board for Brendan Howlin if he knows what’s good for him. He should try to get it right this time. Meanwhile, it’s a bit premature to be talking about Sinn Féin going into government with Fianna Fáil after the next election.

That’s a subject Gerry Adams addressed at the party’s Ardfheis in Castlebar at the weekend. While he does not personally favour such a coalition, he certainly did not rule it out. The election is not due for another three years and anything is possible.

Fianna Fáil, according to most recent opinion polls, remains the most popular party but it is almost certain, even if the Soldiers of Destiny maintain their position up to 2016, that it will not have enough seats to form a government on its own. The most optimistic Fianna Fáil members themselves do not believe that will happen. The best they can hope for is to maximise the number of seats they receive and form a government with the help of another party or parties. While Fianna Fáil might prefer to form a government with Labour, their best chance might very well be with Sinn Féin.

A week, the old cliché goes, is a long time in politics. So three years is forever. The scenario in 2016 may be totally different to what it is today. Even if the support shown in the opinion polls for Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin holds up, both parties will have to make a lot of compromises in order to agree a coalition arrangement between them.

Take one issue, for example: the property tax. Sinn Féin pledged at the weekend to fight “tooth and nail” against the tax and to abolish it if and when they get into government. Gerry Adams also pledged, “when we make promises and commitments we keep them”.

Fianna Fáil can hardly agree with that promise to abolish the tax because they had already promised to introduce a property tax before the last election. Fianna Fáil’s argument with Sinn Féin will be: “what’s the alternative now?” The Troika might have something to say about this Sinn Féin commitment anyway.

There will, of course, be a lot of other issues to be ironed out before Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin can possibly sign any programme for government after the next election. And the property tax might be the easiest problem to sort out. It must also be remembered that Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin will be fighting in the election for support from the same vote base. So, to a large extent, the more seats Fianna Fáil get the fewer will go to Sinn Féin. So expect a bitter war of words between the two parties, not just during the election campaign but over the next three years.

Meanwhile, last week marked 15 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April 1998. Another example of how far Sinn Féin has come in the intervening years was shown at the party’s Ardfheis in Castlebar when delegates called on the Government to lift the embargo on garda recruitment and to stop closing garda stations.

In the old days Sinn Féin would rejoice at the closure of garda stations and celebrate any reduction in garda numbers.

It is still, however, very much a party of protest and it gets its support from a lot of those who would be unhappy with any government. That support would probably disappear after a term in power with Fianna Fáil. So Sinn Féin would have to be very careful what they wish for. They are not complete fools and they know very well what has happened to other small parties who went into government with larger parties. The PDs and the Greens have been wiped off the political map and Labour support has almost collapsed.

Gerry Adams surely had his tongue in his cheek when he called on the Labour Party to leave government now. He knows full well that his words were going to fall on very deaf ears. Labour has no notion of pulling out of government now or for at least another year or two. Labour knows that if they pull out now Fine Gael will go to the country and Labour will be decimated at the election. So it ain’t gonna happen.

Another example of how far Sinn Féin has travelled since the Good Friday Agreement was in Martin McGuinness’s call on Nationalists and Republicans not to celebrate Margaret Thatcher’s death but to let her rest. Could you imagine McGuinness making that call in the old days? Well he did welcome the Queen of England over here last year and he has called dissident Republicans “traitors”.

The peace, however, is a very delicate one as has been shown over the flags’ issue in Northern Ireland for the past four or five months. Sinn Féin and their DUP partners in the Assembly have been tip-toeing around each other in recent times. There is always a big danger that the Agreement could collapse at any time. Where would that leave the peace process?

Dublin and London do not want to know what is happening in Northern Ireland these days. It’s back to the old days when the governments here and in Westminster washed their hands of events in the North and let the parties there sort out their differences themselves. That policy lead to 30 years of bloodshed and suffering. We surely do not want history to repeat itself.