The pressure is on to go easy on our own people

There is going to be increased pressure on the two Government parties to ease up on austerity and most of the pressure is going to come from within their own ranks.
So far, however, all appeals – from inside and outside the parties – to lighten the burden on those who can least afford to pay for the bad debts of the banks, have fallen on deaf ears. Fine Gael and Labour appear to have been more concerned about how they are perceived in Brussels than how they are seen here at home.
So is it any wonder that Fianna Fáil is now the most popular party in the State? Or, perhaps I should say, the least unpopular party because none of them is getting very high marks in the popularity stakes.
An opinion poll in The Irish Times two weeks ago that put Fianna Fáil ahead of Fine Gael for the first time in years was widely dismissed because the poll was taken prior to the deal on the promissory notes. Fine Gael people were confident that their respective positions would be reversed and that the Blueshirts would once again be in the lead in the next poll taken in the aftermath of the deal. But lo and behold, last weekend in the Sunday Independent another poll confirmed Fianna Fáil’s lead over all the other parties and even put them further ahead than the previous poll had.
I don’t think this is down to anything that Fianna Fáil has been doing. Rather I think Fianna Fáil’s ascendancy has more to do with what Fine Gael – and Labour – have been doing than it is due to the leadership skills of Micheál Martin and his frontbench.
Of course, we are not going to have a general election for another three years and the polls are certain to fluctuate. They are just telling us how the people would vote if an election were held now.
But the pressure on Fine Gael and Labour to go easy on us is going to come from their own deputies as they watch these polls and measure their own chances of re-election from them. Up to recent months, Fine Gael deputies were reasonably happy with the polls, which were showing the party more or less holding the support it got in the general election. The voters appeared to be taking out all their anger on Labour.
The last budget however, was the last straw. Now, both Government parties are at the receiving end of the public’s fury. On these latest figures, Fine Gael and Labour would not have enough seats between them to hold on to power after the general election.
Both parties will lose out heavily to Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Independent or other party candidates. I stress that I am going on the outcome of recent opinion polls and am not making any predictions about the next general election. It is far too early to express any opinion on the result of an election that we may not have until 2016.
Backbench TDs from both Government parties will be breaking down the doors of their party colleagues in the Cabinet to give back some of what they have taken from the people since they came into power two years ago.
They did think the deal on the promissory notes would help to swing the pendulum back in their favour.
However, last Sunday’s poll seems to have dashed that expectation. If people cannot see any tangible results from that deal – in other words, more money in their pockets – they are not going to back it.
Instead of giving back something to the people, the opposite is coming down the tracks. Demands to pay up the hated property tax are going to come dropping through our letterboxes very shortly.
These demands are hardly likely to put Fine Gael back in the lead again in the opinion polls or to rescue Labour from the disaster that is staring them in the face at the local elections due next year.
On top of the property tax, we are going to have the water charges and then we are going to have the dreaded septic tank inspection and repair fees. So instead of giving money back to the people, the Government is set to take more out of their pockets.
There is also a crisis in mortgage arrears that is threatening to cause major problems for the coalition before the year is out. How are people going to be able to afford to pay any of these extra charges, taxes and fees if they cannot afford to keep the roof over their heads?
These and many other problems are going to cause major headaches for the Government in the months ahead and are going to pose question marks over the ability of Fine Gael and Labour to regain some of the support they had at the last election, which they have since lost. They need not one but several miracles.
Meanwhile, I really cannot understand why Micheál Martin bothered to deny that Fianna Fáil might do a deal with Sinn Féin after the election. He knows damn well that we know damn well that he is having us on.
Granted, he would prefer to do a deal with Labour and granted, the Sinn Féin brand is still very toxic among a lot of voters that Martin hopes to coax away from Fine Gael but he will still do a deal with Gerry Adams or whoever is leading Sinn Féin at the time if they have the numbers between them.
Pay no heed to what he says now. Like previous party leaders who made various solemn pledges that they would not go into government with various other parties, he will go to the Sinn Féin leader, he will put down his foot and he will say “these are our policies and if you don’t like them we will change them”.
That’s the way it always was and that’s the way it always will be. Of course, the obvious coalition arrangement for Fianna Fáil after the election will probably be a government formed between themselves and Fine Gael, the two most like-minded parties in the Dáil but that is the arrangement that is least likely to happen.
However, I think we are in for some exciting times in Irish politics in the months ahead.