We need a balance to Fine Gael

It is not only bitter experience that is making me want to avoid making a prediction about this week’s General Election vote in County Clare. I obviously wish to sidestep a repeat of the last ballot when I got the call utterly wrong but in this case I am genuinely unable to feel a real leaning with regard to the outcome of the vote.

In a way, the physical remove of living on a different island is a surprising benefit. Political reality and the greater overview is, on some occasions, easier to observe from the outside. Within the maelstrom of the campaign it can be difficult to sit back and coldly assess what is actually going on.
This view from outside is absolutely no good without some inside information with which to correlate it so I spoke to a number of candidates in a very unscientific and informal way to gauge the mood and see what the issues were in their eyes and those they are meeting on the doorsteps. According to the candidates, five years on from the last election, the issues have not changed.
This is indicative not of a failure of the people of Clare in their political imagination; it is an indication of abject failure on the part of the last Government to address the issues fully during their time in office. Before the Opposition seizes on this statement as some kind of rallying call for their cause, it must be noted that the issues identified by the candidates are the same issues, which will have been to the fore in every election in the last 20 years. They are the hospital in Ennis, the decline of Shannon Airport and unemployment.
I have heard from certain quarters that the current economic depression has spawned an acute xenophobia on the part of many voters but this is an issue for another column. Certainly, the sitting politicians who were members of the governing party in the last Dáil term should be singled out for the most criticism when we regard the dire straits in which Shannon Airport and Ennis hospital find themselves in but they are not the only ones.
If the Fine Gael deputies in County Clare stand up and say what could we do to boost the airport and the hospital while in opposition then it begs the question – why elect an opposition TD at all?
Similar to the unscientific and casual questions I put to some candidates, I now offer some questions to you, the voters of County Clare. What did the candidates and the parties they represent offer you, your family and those you care about? Did they offer anything tangible, and believable, which will ultimately benefit you in your life? Perhaps most importantly of all, did they offer you anything you really believe you have not been offered before by anybody else?
At the time of writing, Labour look shaky in the national opinion polls compared to where they were a few weeks ago. This may be related to Eamon Gilmore’s less than electric performance in various debates. If it were down to the performance of leaders on debates, Fine Gael would have slipped into minus figures by now thanks to their charisma-deficient commander-in-chief.
Because of the possibility that Fine Gael might conceivably land an overall majority, it is the duty of every person in Clare to analyse the full manifesto of the Fine Gael party and see what they are actually proposing if they wish at any point in the next few years to complain about the actions of the government.
This is no slight on the three Fine Gael candidates in the county, I know all of them personally and they are good people but, aside from personality, the policies of the party they are standing for must be considered.
If they manage their voting strategy well, there is a possibility all three might be sitting in Dublin. Surely in this case some reward might come to the county as a result but would it cancel out the potential damage to the country that single-party rule would yield?
A real benefit of being at this remove is the ability to compare the policies of Fine Gael with those of the British Conservative Party. In the run-up to the election in Britain people similarly flocked to the right of centre blue brigade behind the odious David Cameron.
Now they are reaping the terrible benefits. When the people of Britain voted, they had an ‘anybody but Labour’ attitude, resulting in the Tories seizing power by subjugating the Liberal Democrats.
This led to widespread horror at the prospect of coalition government. Now the reverse may happen in Ireland where a Fine Gael single party regime may come to power after the vote. What will be the very same is the policies they introduce.
Whatever Fine Gael say, they are the Irish wing of the Conservative Party. Their own website cites their desire for ‘smaller’ government. They announced their intention to crack down on ‘welfare fraud’ a few days after the Tories announced it in Britain. Perhaps they are robbing their policies or perhaps they are just on exactly the same wavelength as their cousins across the Irish Sea.
Labour’s proposals regarding a new constitution may be both fanciful and essentially pie in the sky but it is important that those people are in government with Fine Gael to balance out the potential for destruction if Kenny’s crew are the sole purveyors of power in the country.   
Despite the presence on people’s doorsteps of decent people seeking votes, the electorate must remember that a vote for them is a vote for their leader. A Fine Gael government is a Fianna Fáil dream because having Enda Kenny as taoiseach for the next five years will rejuvenate them in massive way. This is also something that needs to be avoided.
Labour’s inability to put forward reasonable financial arithmetic has dented their credibility but at this point they are needed nationally because they are at least a hint of a balance to the right-wing intentions of Fine Gael.