Tardiness in tackling public sector and political reform will not be rewarded by voters
THE WEATHER is different from the sub-zero temperatures of this time last year and so, too, are the faces dominating our politics. Apart from that, though, the news for Ireland is very much the same as it was 12 months ago. So much has changed in 2011, yet so much has just stayed the same.
When viewed strictly in terms of personnel, this has been a year of the most extraordinary political change in Ireland. It compares only to the years around the foundation of the State in terms of the turnover among those who run or who at least are supposed to run this country.
Our domestic political situation is less chaotic now. This week last year the Green Party had confirmed it was leaving government early in the new year on a date even then undetermined. The government they shared with Fianna Fáil was stuck on historically low approval ratings.
Brian Cowen notionally led a party stunned by the sudden realisation of its impending doom. An angry electorate was itching for an opportunity to punish the government parties at the polls.
One year on, we have a new Government with a fresh and unprecedented mandate led by a Taoiseach with a happier demeanour.
A dozen of those who were cabinet members last December, including the man who was taoiseach and the woman who was tánaiste, are no longer even in Dáil Éireann. The man who was minister for finance is sadly no longer of this world.
Some 85 of the 166 TDs sitting in the Dáil were not there this time last year. Only 15 of our 60 Senators were in the Upper House 12 months ago. We also have a different President this Christmas.
We have our first Fine Gael Taoiseach in 14 years and he leads a historically large Fine Gael party. Our Labour Tánaiste also leads the largest Labour Party parliamentary bloc ever. Fianna Fáil, which dominated Irish politics for more than eight decades, is now marooned in Opposition, a mere shadow of its former self.
Yet, despite the dramatic electoral outcomes of 2011, there is a sameness about much of our political situation. We are still bound and operating in compliance with the terms of the bailout deal. We are still paying off bank debts. Our prospects are still shaped by enduring turbulence on the currency and bond markets. Our fortunes are determined by the fortunes of the euro. Ireland’s recovery is still dependent on the precarious prospects for international growth.
Notwithstanding the competitive over- promising engaged in by Fine Gael and Labour during the election campaign, and their championing of the need for radical reform, there is a sameness too about the policy being implemented by this Government. Their economic policy is a working out of the Lenihan four-year plan with minor adjustments. In other policy areas, their approach has been slow and conservative.
At a recent MacGill summer school seminar in Dublin, I wondered aloud why the new Government had been so slow and restrained in, for example, implementing its political reform programme. I compared its tardy and cautious approach with the first year of Seán Lemass’s government. Lemass, an old man in a hurry, just got stuck in. His approach to the job created an appreciable sense of windows being opened across the political system and the public sector.
In response to my remarks, a Fine Gael speaker in the audience suggested that regard should be had to the fact that the new Government was only in position nine months, was composed of parties that had been in opposition for almost a decade and a half and was facing an unprecedented economic crisis.
I argued that these were the very reasons why one would have expected them to be more dramatic and more courageous in their first months.
Our new Government has a massive parliamentary mandate. As long as it can agree between the two parties, it is assured of a full five-year stint in power. It has the advantage of being able to think and act in at least the medium term. It should be frontloading the implementation of their programme for government. It should be leveraging the economic crisis as a basis for effecting radical reform in the public sector and political system.
This is a Cabinet of some talents. New Ministers are quickly mastering their briefs in areas like agriculture and children’s affairs. At the core of this Cabinet, however, is a cohort of senior experienced politicians with extensive experience of government.
Ministers such as Michael Noonan, Brendan Howlin, Ruairí Quinn, Enda Kenny, Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore are not ministerial adolescents. These are men whose political hormones have long settled down. We were entitled to expect they would be more decisive and less cautious in seeking to implement dramatic policy shifts.
The public mood is low in Ireland, as it was a year ago. If anything it has got worse. There was widespread apprehension in the lead-in to 2011. There is real fear that things could be even more difficult in 2012.
There was a predictable drop in both Fine Gael and Labour support in the first post- budget opinion poll conducted for last weekend's Sunday Times.Rather than spooking it into being even more careful, this should embolden the Government to be more adventurous. It should have a healthy disregard for the monthly shifts in public opinion and focus instead on tackling the structural difficulties. This is what will determine its re-election prospects.
To the extent that Ireland has any control over its own affairs, it is the degree of willingness on the part of the new Government to use its mandate courageously, which will determine our prospects for recovery.