| QUIDNUNC: From front-bench to grassroots, the members of Fine Gael, as they gather at City West this weekend for their pre-election ardfheis, are determined to avoid dwelling on the despondency brought on by poor opinion polls and concentrate instead on the positive. Renagh Holohan writes |
From front-bench to grassroots, the members of Fine Gael, as they gather at City West this weekend for their pre-election ardfheis, are determined to avoid dwelling on the despondency brought on by poor opinion polls and concentrate instead on the positive. They are desperately aware, however, that if they fail to enter government after the May election, in whatever coalition the new Dáil numbers allow, they could be in free-fall for the medium-term future.
The case of William Hague and the Tory party in Britain is an example of what can happen and members know that if Michael Noonan fails to be elected taoiseach his days are numbered.
On the positive side, party strategists point to the loyalty and dedication of members, a base they believe will never be eroded; and the fact that national polls do not accurately reflect the reality in individual constituencies where they see the party holding its own and gaining a few. There are three months left before D-day and the attack on Fianna Fáil which is now beginning, will be relentless.
The ardfheis will be partly a damage-limitation exercise but mainly a morale-lifting occasion for the faithful. Noonan has to defuse the mounting worry and enthuse members to depart confident and fighting. It is too early to unwrap the manifesto but there will be an effort to regain the liberal middle-ground which backed Garret FitzGerald - and this is already evident in the trenchant opposition to the Government's Abortion Bill. Bertie Ahern is an almost impossible target compared with Albert Reynolds or Charlie Haughey, so new ways of making an impact have to be found. Most of all, Fine Gael members need their luck, which has been against them for the past year, to turn.
Senator Maurice Manning, launching Days of Blue Loyalty, the Politics of Membership of the the Fine Gael Party by professors Michael Gallagher and Michael Marsh on Wednesday, set out the case. In every decade from 1925, the demise of FG had been prophesied. But Fianna Fáil, he said, rarely fell into this trap because it knew how deep FG's roots were. The book showed that members had a "very clear view of what they see as the core values of the party, in many ways old fashioned values - plain talking, straight dealing, integrity". Members were not living in the past, Manning said, but were willing to accept huge changes, just as they had led on Europe, social issues and Northern Ireland. Maybe the parliamentary party hadn't consulted the members enough; they wanted a bigger say and that was their entitlement. He said nothing about luck, but it's a word on a lot of lips.
There was some fanciful talk last week when Liam Lawlor arrived in Leinster House for the debate calling for his resignation from the Dáil that he could take sanctuary there and, since it is off limits to the Garda, refuse to budge. What, they mused, would happen then? Was it possible for him to hole up until the Dáil was dissolved and his membership of the most exclusive club in Ireland was gone? Didn't such a thing happen before?
Well yes and no. Yes, it is true that gardaí cannot arrest a member of the Oireachtas on their way to and from the House (a legacy from the civil war when one side might detain an opposing deputy on his way to vote) and that they cannot enter the precincts of the house. And yes, a member did take refuge there on the odd occasion (e.g. Sean Dunne who was being chased by bailiffs and process servers in the 1950s and wanted to avoid being declared bankrupt).
But no, say the experts, Lawlor couldn't have given his jailers the slip by claiming sanctuary because the High Court had released him for a specific purpose under the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas authorities. Just as when a member is ordered from the chamber by a ceann comhairle, he or she is physically escorted out by the ushers, so would the member for Dublin West have been led to the Mountjoy van. It could have been interesting.
The new electronic voting system in the chamber of Leinster House is due to be activated any day now, no one knows when, and reports that it has all cost €1 million are circulating among members attending the training sessions. Oireachtas authorities couldn't confirm the figure.
The system will probably run smoothly enough on the day but not all deputies are pleased with a change which will reduce the time for a vote from 19 minutes to 12. The division bell rings for nine minutes to allow members to leave their offices, some across the road in Kildare Street, and voting takes 10. The pressing of buttons in the new system will take three. In future, deputies will have to sit in designated seats and remember their console code. What many don't like is the restriction on freedom of movement and, particularly, the fact that they won't be able to access ministers as they queue up together in the division lobbies.
A group of 27 Irish clerics, including 11 Catholic bishops, Protestants and dissenters, descend on Brussels on Monday, courtesy of the European Commission.
The group, which includes such holy persons as Bishops Willie Walsh and John Kirby, Father Harry Bohan, Canon Adrian Empey, Rev Eithne Lynch of Cork and Methodist president Rev Harold Good, will be briefed on all the great issues of today - Nice, the future of Europe, rural development, humanitarian and overseas aid and research on stem cells and GMOs. Although there will no doubt be a moral dimension to the discussions, there is no provision in any EU treaty for any morals at all.
The group will meet commissioner David Byrne, EP president Pat Cox and, over lunch, all the Irish MEPs. They will attend an ecumenical service in the parish of St Anthony which was founded by the Irish community and run by Irish Franciscans in conjunction with the Irish College in Louvain.