As the election is called Mark Brennock reviews the events of the longest sitting Dáil in peacetime and the waves of controversies
Many predicted the Government formed by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats wouldn't last a year. Two seats short of a voting majority in the Dáil when coming to office in 1997, the minority Coalition was immediately rocked by several waves of scandal and alleged sleaze.
Indeed it wasn't long before Mary Harney was wearing what Pat Rabbitte calls "the face she puts on when the Fianna Fáil foxes have got at the chicken coop again". Minister Ray Burke resigned within months, with the Tánaiste letting it be known that she had not been fully informed of the extent or otherwise of the Taoiseach's investigation of allegations against Mr Burke.
The Flood tribunal was set up to investigate allegations of planning corruption. More startling revelations concerning a number of Fianna Fáil deputies were to follow, and the PDs' long-term commitment to the Coalition was in doubt.
Yet the Government has lasted its full five-year term, overcoming controversy after controversy to hold onto power and pursue its programme. For most of its period in office, the Government has surfed on waves of good economic figures including low inflation, falling jobless numbers and rising Exchequer revenue. But five years on it can also point to significant policy changes it has put into effect and apparently high levels of popularity. At times lurching from crisis to crisis, it has transformed the personal income tax regime and been a major player in a political transformation in Northern Ireland.
The establishment of the Flood tribunal in 1997 followed an unrelenting stream of allegations concerning Mr Ray Burke's role in certain Dublin planning matters. He resigned ultimately over his role in the "passports for sale" affair. The Flood and Moriarty tribunals began to expose aspects of how public business was conducted over the past four decades, producing allegations and revelations deeply damaging to Fianna Fáil more than anyone else.
Just a few months into government, the Coalition was fighting rearguard actions over the torrent of sleaze allegations, but also making extraordinary progress on other fronts. On Northern Ireland, the Taoiseach relentlessly pushed for political development and played a central role in bringing about developments that would have been thought impossible five years ago.
Within a couple of months of the Coalition taking office, the IRA restored its ceasefire, and was followed by the loyalist paramilitary organisations. Painfully slow progress led first to the beginning of all-party negotiations, the signing of the Belfast Agreement and then the seemingly endless rounds of talks that led to the setting up of the new political institutions in which unionist and Sinn Féin ministers worked together, and the start of a process of IRA weapons decommissioning.
The early progress on Northern Ireland ran in tandem with the deepening controversy over Mr Burke. It was a foretaste of the way success and crisis would happen in parallel throughout the Government's lifetime. Within weeks of the Burke resignation, Fianna Fáil's candidate, Mrs Mary McAleese, scored an impressive victory in the presidential election.
That election marked a watershed for the Opposition too. Mr John Bruton's ratings as Fine Gael leader fell significantly in the aftermath of a very poor campaign for the party. Labour's leader Mr Dick Spring threw in the towel altogether, choosing the moment to step down, making way for Mr Ruairí Quinn to take over the party.
Mr Quinn spent most of 1998 negotiating and successfully concluding the merger between his party and Democratic Left. The coming together of the four Democratic Left deputies with the 17 from Labour was supposed to lead to a powerful new political force. While this could emerge on polling day, it hasn't happened yet.
THE year 1998 saw the signing of the Belfast Agreement, Flood and Moriarty rumble on and Fianna Fáil and the Taoiseach reach record high ratings in opinion polls. In 1999 came news of the Taoiseach signing blank cheques for Mr Haughey, local election successes for Fianna Fáil and the Government's third tax reforming budget which introduced "individualisation" of the standard rate tax band.
The year 2000 saw the resignation of Denis Foley TD when it emerged he was an Ansbacher account holder. But later that year brought the Government's single most extraordinary misjudgment - the decision to nominate former Supreme Court judge Mr Hugh O'Flaherty to be a vice¨-president of the European Investment Bank. Mr Charlie McCreevy chose Mr O'Flaherty, who had resigned from the Supreme Court after the controversy over his role in the Sheedy case, for the plum post. More deliciously for the Opposition, the idea had first been run past the Tánaiste, Ms Mary Harney, who approved it.
Fianna Fáil, PD and Government poll ratings plummeted as the Government stuck stubbornly to its decision for almost three months before the idea was finally abandoned. For a time in June 2000 there was speculation that the Government could fall over the affair. However, as the Dáil continued, there appeared to be no issue that the Opposition could use to prise away from the Government the support of the four independent deputies upon which it relied. Close to invisible in parliamentary terms, it was these independents who ensured the Dáil was so long-lived.
When the O'Flaherty nomination was finally withdrawn in September 2000 there was widespread comment that the Government was terminally damaged. However, within months the main Opposition party had slumped to its worst poll performance of the current Dáil, leading backbenchers finally to oust John Bruton as leader and to replace him with Mr Michael Noonan.
But it appeared nothing could revive the Opposition's - and particularly Fine Gael's - fortunes. Mr Noonan was immediately plunged into controversies over the past funding of his party, tax free under-the-counter payments to staff and a revival of media interest in Mr Noonan's role in the hepatitis C affair.
Meanwhile, the Government survived knock after knock. Last year saw the jailing of Liam Lawlor, the resignation of Ned O'Keeffe as a Minister of State concerning his non-declaration of interest in a matter being voted upon by the Dáil, and the departure of Beverley Cooper-Flynn from the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party. The chaotic state of the health services became more and more noticeable as the Coalition's term of office rolled on. The Government lost the Nice Treaty referendum last year, the abortion referendum this year, six by-elections since 1997, and yet none of this has appeared to rebound so far to the advantage of the Opposition.
The only party that appears to have made a breakthrough in the past five years is Sinn Féin, now registering at about 8 per cent in opinion polls compared to about 2 per cent five years ago. The change in perception of Sinn Féin has come not from events in the Republic but from political progress in the North.
The economic uncertainty since last autumn has at last given the Opposition some scope to question the Government's assertion that it is responsible for the unprecedented economic boom. Falling Exchequer revenues, falling growth rates and rising unemployment have led the Opposition - particularly Labour - to accuse the Government of making spending promises that it cannot pay for.
In response, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, hasn't been heard for months in public debate on economic policy. However, the creative boosting of Exchequer revenues in the last Budget through taking money from the Social Insurance Fund and from the Central Bank will ensure that the expected Budget deficit for 2002 is not yet fully apparent.
The Government's capacity for survival seemed at times to be truly remarkable. According to sources close to the Taoiseach, it was the predictions at the start of his Government's term that it would collapse within a year that led to his determination to serve the longest term in peacetime. His achievement is that whatever happens during the election campaign, it is the Opposition that is emerging most bruised from the 28th Dáil.