IT IS no surprise that Sinn Féin’s Senator Pearse Doherty won the Donegal South West byelection, following his successful High Court action that caused the contest. However, the scale of the victory and the implications voting transfer patterns may have for the coming general election will concentrate minds within the major parties.
The collapse in Fianna Fáil’s first preference vote, from 50 to 21 per cent, will send shudders through that organisation while Fine Gael’s failure to improve on its 23 per cent general election showing will cause serious concern. At the same time, the Labour Party’s ambition to become the leading player in a new government has received something of a cold bath.
The outcome of the byelection will tighten the Government’s working majority in the Dáil but it is unlikely to precipitate an immediate general election. Sinn Féin has already tabled a motion of “no confidence” in the Government, but the Opposition parties have taken a responsible position on the necessity for the passage of the budget. The general expectation at Leinster House is that, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU laying down strict financial parameters, the budget will pass. That, in turn, may facilitate an election in less fraught fiscal circumstances.
The difficulties of the road ahead became evident during the week when the Government published the terms of its four-year recovery plan. There is little to offer comfort in that document. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has organised a march in Dublin today to protest against its stringency. Given that its financial targets will underpin the Memorandum of Understanding with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, however, it is difficult to envisage significant changes being made.
At first sight, projected savings in the plan appear to impact most heavily on the least well off. But experts recommend that judgment on its distributive aspects be withheld until the full income tax and social welfare provisions are announced in 10 days.
It has been an extraordinary week. As officials from the IMF/EU moved in, the Green Party announced it would withdraw from Government and proposed late January for a general election. As a result, Brian Cowen’s leadership came under immediate attack inside and outside of Fianna Fáil. With Brussels insisting that the budget must pass, he rallied his Ministers and held on, publishing the four-year recovery plan and suggesting a later, March election.
There is a general consensus that Mr Cowen’s days are numbered. The Green Party will seem supine if it waits for the calling of the general election until March. Powerful forces within Fianna Fáil are pushing for a leadership change in early January to present the electorate with a different image.
After 10 years in office, it may make little difference. But, if his opponents have their way, Mr Cowen could break new political ground by overseeing the passage of the Finance Bill as a caretaker Taoiseach.