Election fall-out: The fallout from last weekend will be with us for longer than the five years that the next government plans to rule. The Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat administration - and that's how it looks - will have a secure Dáil majority to strengthen the centre-right policies it started during its current term and attempts by a future government to overturn them won't be easy.
Election fall-out
Indeed, Michael Noonan warned during the campaign that after 10 years in power, the coalition would have bedded down changes to Irish society which wouldturn it into a market of consumers rather than a society of citizens.
Whatever happens, coalition-wise, both Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney are secure in their positions; the same doesn't apply to the other major party leaders. Fine Gael needs a new leader, because of a disastrous result, and Labour's Ruairí Quinn is vulnerable because, despite the merger with Democratic Left, he failed to increase the vote. Fine Gael has to find a place on the political field. With Labour on the soft left, the Shinners on the harder, republican left and the Greens holding the trendy, middle-class left and with Fianna Fáil in the centre and the Progressive Democrats centre right, it's difficult to find a vacant spot.
Quinn is expected to stay as leader for at least a year. If the party doesn't experience a lift by then, he could be gone before the crucial local elections of 2004. The Greens and the Shinners are in a strong position in the Dáil to increase their vote for the locals and for 2007, if, as is now expected, the new Government lasts that long.
The first big task facing the new Cabinet - forget the national stadium and the dual mandate - is Nice. It won't be easy. Other upcoming issues include the disputed state of the national finances, tax rates, budget policy, investment in health and infrastructure, privatisation, and the North.
But these are not matters the people who will be leading us are currently thinking about. For them, it's all about jobs - who gets what. Ahern is always cautious, so a night of the long knives is not expected but he will have to move some of the older Cabinet members aside to make room for younger blood if he is to satisfy most of the parliamentary party.
Election challenges over expenses possible: If the politicians thought the agony was over, they have another thing coming. At the very least, their electoral expenses will be subject to even further scrutiny in the future, and at most, a couple of the successful candidates could end up in court with their election challenged.
The unsuccessful Fianna Fáil candidate in Dublin Mid West, Des Kelly, won his case last week when he challenged the constitutionality of exempting publicly paid services available to outgoing members of the Oireachtas (post, phones, fax, etc) from a candidate's total election expenditure. With strict limits on spending ranging from €25,394 in a three-seater to €38,092 in a five-seater, imposed on each candidate, the exemption of such benefits gives Oireachtas members, Kelly argued, an unfair advantage over non-members.
The Standards in Public Office Commission is now awaiting a copy of the May 16th High Court judgement by Justice Liam McKechnie and will then decide what action to take. Because the campaign was all but over when the case was won, it is unlikely the Commission will apply the new inclusions retrospectively but, unless the State mounts a successful appeal, the rules will change for future elections.
Kelly says he has no objection to members using the said facilities, but it is a dreadful inequality. His rivals could send out thousands of letters in Oireachtas envelopes, not only for free but without counting the value in their election expenditure. He will take no further action and is only sorry the judgment didn't come earlier in the campaign, when it might have made a difference. There is still, though, the possibility that someone who lost by a couple of votes to an outgoing TD or senator may feel a trip to the Four Courts is in order.
Time to mourn the tallymen: Quidnunc is a political junkie but anyone with half an interest in politics is already bemoaning the passing of the manual count and with it the tallymen and the drama they generate. While electronic voting is here to stay (barring a new Minister for the Environment overturning Noel Dempsey's plans) the stark, shocking style of the declarations in the three experimental constituencies last weekend is not necessarily the future. There was general agreement that the British system of lining up the candidates for the returning officer's one and only announcement didn't work here. It works in Britain because it has single-seat constituencies and a first-past-the-post system, i.e. one count only and one winner.
RTÉ did a splendid job, from tallies to studio discussions, from graphics to outside broadcasts. If this long fascinating drama vanished, with its analysts and pundits and the ebbs and flows of the counts, we would be the poorer for it. But all is not lost. A compromise could be found in staggering the release of results, allowing say 30-minute gaps between each count, so they could be analysed; and starting the count the next morning rather than when polls close.
Peter Feeney, who ran the election steering group at RTÉ, told Quidnunc RTÉ believes the count programme contributes to the public interest in politics and it would be a shame it was curtailed. The station has lobbied politicians on the grounds that public life would lose out if there was no elongated count programme and soon there would be no understanding of the PR system at all. "By all means, have electronic voting - it is more efficient - but move the count slowly, with gaps between counts," he says. "Our future programmes could be spread over three or four hours. We will not have the long 14-hour day again, but there is an awful lot to talk about and it enhances politics, and politicians like to come in and talk. We will continue to encourage the relevant minister to change the plans - slow it down and wait until the next day. Last weekend cost €1.2 million; you could not invest that much money in a half-hour programme."
Feeney believes much of the colour would be lost under the new system, including such occasions as the dignified speech in defeat by Dick Spring, and Alan Dukes who arrived into Montrose having just lost his seat. It is also, he says, important to hear from the newly elected TDs.
Candidates involved in long counts and recounts may favour the new system to lessen the agony, but many others deplore it. They will no longer have the benefit of tracking
the votes from the various boxes and through the transfers of surpluses and eliminations. And they will have no time to prepare themselves for the result - good or bad, but particularly bad.
End of blackout nigh: The moratorium on election coverage on all RTÉ stations, radio and television, from the morning of the day before polling until the polls close the following night, has no legal standing and may be reviewed. For 40 years, the State broadcaster has operated the moratorium and it has now become the norm. It was introduced to allow the station to correct any mistake made in the run-up to polling; if an error was broadcast on the last day, there would be no opportunity to correct it before polls opened.
RTÉ says such an occasion had never arisen so the raison d'être for the blackout was doubtful. While it was no harm that the public was given a rest from the election, and many politicians liked it because they could operate locally on the last day of campaigning, the basis for its existence remained questionable. "I think it is something that should be revisited. Perhaps a stronger case could be made for it when RTÉ had a virtual monopoly on domestic broadcasting. It doesn't apply to newspapers."
Ironically, the independent stations, including all the local radios, are required to operate the blackout. The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland directive states "there should be no coverage of candidates or electoral interest groups in the final 24 hours before balloting commences or on the day of the election." Any material with the potential to influence the outcome of the election is also banned during the period.
Less cut and more thrust for Seanad: Politics is not entirely a blood sport, at least where the Seanad is concerned. As nominations for the six university seats closed on Wednesday, outgoing senators Shane Ross and David Norris dashed into Trinity with five minutes to spare to submit their papers. There was a great deal of activity with many of the 13 candidates for the three seats buzzing around. One, Prabhu Kulkarni, was running out of the door because two of the 10 names on his nomination papers were not eligible. He needed two graduates, and quickly, if he was to enter the race at all. Hearing of Kulkarni's plight, Ross and Norris did the needful, signed his paper and nominated a rival.
It has to be said they might not have been so kind if the needy had been a serious threat such as Mary Henry or Ivana Bacik. Newcomers to the race include Maurice Guerit, a doctor campaigning against the compo culture; Declan Boland, who is running from Boston Mass.; and Gerard McHugh, a foreign-policy consultant.