The legacy of that younger generation of departed Fine Gaelers is mixed.
A number of them were in government when particular challenges presented themselves, including recovery from the economic crash, Brexit, the Covid pandemic and heightened security and defence concerns owing to international conflict.
By being in government for so long they played a role in cementing Fine Gael as a party of power, in contrast to their predecessors who had always faced a dominant Fianna Fáil. But that also created identity issues that were not resolved, and the result was quite an ideological mishmash.
Just what does Fine Gael stand for now and how is it distinctive? These questions have troubled Fine Gael for decades and continue to. When setting out their stalls for the leadership of the party in 2017, Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar presented alternative views; Coveney emphasised the “Just Society” vision from 1964, while Varadkar opted for his slogan of representing people “who get up early in the morning”. Paschal Donohoe also maintained that the Just Society ideas of the 1960s were the “guiding compass” to his membership of Fine Gael, but his instincts in practice seemed much more conservative.
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Core spending rose above agreed limits; the breaching of spending rules became the norm and was largely dictated by politics rather than sound economics, but even with the massive spending, the social contract is so frayed, most obviously in the vital area of housing, but also health and childcare, that for many the “just society” notion is beyond hollow.
The just society document was essentially about promoting equality through State intervention, an equality many of today’s voters do not see Fine Gael delivering. Historically, Fine Gael prided itself on championing fiscal rectitude and law and order, but the party is hardly in a position now to argue that it stands apart in relation to either.
It is significant that those younger Fine Gael ministers were able to declare the end of Civil War politics and share power with Fianna Fáil. Given the historic enmities between the two parties, that represented a fundamental change, but it was also a marriage of necessity. The mantra has been that “the centre must hold”, but the fracturing of traditional Irish political loyalties means that centre has shrunk dramatically, and by clinging together, both parties have diluted their distinctiveness.
The robustness of economic development and job creation, the introduction of marriage equality, the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, the adroit handling of Anglo-Irish relations after Brexit, steady hands provided during the Covid pandemic, the solidarity with victims of the war on Ukraine, and the stability of Irish governance during an era when democracy has been so egregiously undermined, are no small things.
But there is also a sense that this generation of Fine Gaelers were too often firefighting or plugging holes rather than having a coherent social vision, and far too preoccupied with the packaging of political soundbites. They have also lost one of their historic missions: in their words, to “save the State” from the messes created by Fianna Fáil.
Enda Kenny promised after the economic crash that Fine Gael would not allow Ireland to return to the “culture that pushed us over the edge”, but there is plenty of evidence that Fine Gael, long ensconced in government, has not been serious enough about that; the institutional reminder of that culture, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, established in 2012, issues advice that is essentially ignored.
After the departure of the young Fine Gaelers, the party appears to be just shoring up its dwindling base rather than facing the future with an ambitious vision to generate widespread appeal.
Diarmaid Ferriter is professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. Among his books is The Revelation of Ireland, 1995-2020
