Grey clouds mar Government’s view

O! What a beautiful morning! A little less beautiful today if you are a member of the new Government, though.

There you are, settling in to your new office. Reading your briefing papers (Golly! We're going to need more money for the department in the budget!). Getting used to calling it "My Department". Getting used to being called "Minister" by your officials. Getting used to calling them "My Officials". Perusing the odd Mercedes catalogue (too Bertie; an Audi will do). Anyway, you get the picture. Congenial.

But this morning there is a grey cloud dulling the sunshine in your soul. Last night, the Government suffered its first defeat on a vote. Losing votes is not a habit you want in government. Lose a few important votes, or lose a lot of semi-important votes, and the Government loses the capacity to implement its will in anything. Then it’s over.

Marie O'Halloran's report on the Private Members' debate and vote is here. With delicious irony, the Private Members' motion on workers' rights was put down by the Labour Party, determined now to take every opportunity to demonstrate that it is absolutely not in government anymore.

The Government could only muster 58 votes in favour of its own amendment to the Labour motion. That is the core strength of Fine Gael plus Independents, and it's a long way from the 79 that constitutes a bare Dáil majority.

Fianna Fáil voted with Labour against the Government as did Sinn Féin, the Green Party, a number of Independents and the AAA-PBP. As Cormac McQuinn's report in the Indo notes, Labour is saying that this is the first time a government has been defeated on a vote like this since a similar defeat for Charles Haughey's 1987-89 minority government caused him to go to the country.

Well, that’s not going to happen on this occasion.

As an expression of the minority Government’s numerical weakness, it was pretty brutal. But let us get things in perspective: It was a motion, not a Bill.

The Government has already had to retreat on a Fianna Fáil Private Members’ Bill on mortgage arrears, knowing it would lose. Losing on Private Members’ time might very well become the norm for the Coalition. The most important fact about the minority Government is just that: it is a minority.

But if the Government’s weakness in parliament extends into more weighty parts of the political and parliamentary agenda, then that will be a different matter. It must seek cross-party support and work some old-time politics and cut deals to progress its agenda.

The Government won’t always be successful. But if it can’t get most of what it wants through parliament most of the time, then it is truly in office but not in power. And that won’t last, no matter how congenial.

Power and responsibility

The reduction in the power of the Government is complemented by the rise of the power of the Dáil, and of the Opposition deputies in it.

The Dáil and its committees will certainly be prepared for talking the talk about the exercise of their new-found power. But will they walk the walk? Will they be prepared to make the choices that every government has to make, when the options are not the simple fantasy of right and wrong, but between bad and worse?

I write today about the opening salvos in what will be a fascinating process to watch at the Dáil's new preliminary budget committee.

But today’s paper also contains rather more concrete examples of the sort of choices that governments face or, at least, for which they will be held responsible.

The HSE has decided to approve the provision of a new cancer drug, which is used to treat melanoma. Pembrolizumab, which costs almost €70,000 per patient per year, will be made available to about 130 patients, reports our health correspondent Paul Cullen.

However, the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, the group that advises the HSE on which new drugs offer value for money, has said that a new high-tech drug for cystic fibrosis is not cost effective at the €158,000 price per patient per year being sought by the drug manufacturer. So the drug Orkambi will not be made available to CF sufferers at the State’s expense.

Readers will have their own views on these judgments. But most people realise that not every new drug, not every new treatment can be provided at the taxpayer’s expense. So how do you choose? And how do you answer the inevitable public campaign by people who feel they are being condemned to suffer - and perhaps die - by a cruel bureaucracy and “out-of-touch” politicians. These are the choices that governments face. Mmmm. Not so congenial all the time.