InsidePolitics/Stephen Collins: The adjournment of the Dáil for its long summer recess on Thursday was an even more welcome relief than usual, as far as TDs of both Government parties were concerned.
The pressure was beginning to tell on Fianna Fáil TDs as the election inched ever closer, while the Progressive Democrats were suffering from nervous exhaustion after weeks of internal dissension.
Both parties will try to regroup over the summer and hope that the political atmosphere will have changed for the better by the time they return to normal business at the end of September. The long-established pattern, as shown in opinion polls, is that the Government recovers ground during the summer when the Opposition parties cease to have the Dáil as a forum for attack.
The Fine Gael-Labour alternative has plans to keep the pressure on the Government over the summer with a series of joint policy announcements. The visit of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte to Belfast yesterday was designed to demonstrate that they are a team and will be able to work together well in office. That will not be truly tested until closer to the election, when both leaders will have to demonstrate that real policy differences between their parties on serious issues can be resolved.
Of course politics does not stop for the three months or so the Dáil is in recess. The Cabinet will continue to meet through July and resume business in early September and the same applies to Dáil committees. The constituency workload of TDs will continue through the summer. However, the absence of the Dáil will inevitably calm the political atmosphere and that is precisely what the coalition needs after a bruising few months. The Fianna Fáil leadership will have the time to put in place the new parliamentary party structures to assuage backbench anxiety and ensure that it does not spill over into open revolt.
The potential for trouble on the backbenches was easily defused by the Taoiseach in recent weeks, but he will be keeping tabs on developments in the party in an effort to ensure that it does not erupt again before the election. The annual parliamentary party get-together, planned for Westport in September, will provide an opportunity for him to pull his TDs together for the coming fray.
The problems in the Progressive Democrats are much more serious. The level of distrust that has developed among leading members of the party is potentially fatal and, unless they can bind up their wounds before the election, disaster threatens. The parliamentary party members had an end-of-term meal together in the Dáil restaurant on Wednesday night and, while that may have stopped the trouble getting any worse for the moment, the TDs and Senators will have huge difficulties working together as a team again.
The PDs are a small party in which all the leading figures have known each other very well for a long time. The result is that a serious row almost inevitably has a much greater impact than in a bigger party, because everybody is involved. The dispute over what assurances Mary Harney gave about standing down as leader is akin to an intractable family row over a will. There is no easy answer to the party's problem.
The final week of the Dáil session demonstrated that the problems are not all on the Government side.
Enda Kenny was still recovering from the embarrassment of using a mugging incident in Kenya some years ago as an example of the breakdown of law and order in this country. There are continuing rumours of unhappiness among some elements in the Labour Party at Pat Rabbitte's leadership and his determination to rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil.
On policy issues Fine Gael and Labour have divided in recent weeks. Labour declined to back the Fine Gael Home Defence Bill. The two parties had very different views on the sale of Aer Lingus and were also divided on the Defence Amendment Bill and the conditions under which Irish troops can participate in EU battlegroups.
The Greens have also had their problems, with rumblings about the party leadership over the past six months. This was followed during the week by the expression of divided views on future strategy by two of its TDs during the debate on the Fine Gael-Labour motion calling for an early election. "This motion to call an early election is opportunistic, cynical and pointless," remarked Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, before going on to denounce the alternative coalition. "It does not matter which of the larger parties is in government following the next election. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats are tired and need to be given a break but the supposed Fine Gael-Labour Party alternative is more of the same."
Gogarty's colleague, Ciarán Cuffe, took a different view: "The rainbow coalition was a good government and we would be happy to add colour and depth to a future rainbow."
The quote of the last week of the Dáil session came from Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea during the debate on the Defence Amendment Bill. Sinn Féin and the Greens claimed the triple lock, which requires UN sanction for the use of Irish troops on humanitarian missions abroad, was being undermined by the legislation.
"I call on everyone here who has a conscience, particularly in the Labour Party, on Irish neutrality and sovereignty to oppose this Bill," Martin Ferris of Sinn Féin said.
"Did the triple lock operate for the murder of Jerry McCabe? Was there a UN resolution for that?" O'Dea shot back.