In his last ardfheis before a general election, Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin will hope to spark enthusiasm among party activists and attract additional public approval. The task is formidable. A bounce in support that emerged two years ago has evaporated under pressure from Sinn Féin, Independents and smaller parties while growing evidence of economic recovery may favour Fine Gael and the Labour Party.
Accused of lacking policies and a clear identity by both internal and external critics, the party is attempting to get used to a downsized role. No longer the big beast of Irish politics with a near-automatic entitlement to rule, Fianna Fáil is struggling to reassert itself. Within the party, that task is made more difficult by grandiose, outdated expectations and an attitude that regards a second consecutive term in opposition as abject failure.
Good local election results in 2013 provided Mr Martin with breathing space. Displacing Fine Gael as the party with the greatest number of councillors, those critics who wished to replace him – because of his role in a government that crashed the economy – backed off. But, having designed many of the austerity measures being implemented by Government, Fianna Fáil was forced to throttle back on the anti-austerity rhetoric being used by Sinn Féin and Independents. Arising from that, Mr Martin was accused of agreeing with the Government on everything. Squabbling is normal within any party. But a legal requirement that one-third of candidates in the coming election should be women has added an explosive ingredient to a male-dominated mix. Candidate selection has become a toxic and destabilising process, as was evident from Mary Hanafin's recent criticisms in Dún Laoghaire.
Responding to complaints that it lacked vision and policies, the party published a health policy document earlier this week. There was a whiff of deja vu about it. The Government's universal health insurance scheme would be abandoned. But the Health Service Executive would be retained along with a traditional two-tier medical system. The new policy paid lip service to community care; proposed a sugar tax and offered to invest an additional €400 million a year in healthcare. Not the kind of exciting, attention-grabbing approach designed to win an election.
Circumstances may, however, have handed Mr Martin a weighty, politically charged weapon. Unspecified Department of Finance concerns that Irish taxpayers may have been short-changed because of the way in which IBRC disposed of distressed assets was one thing. But the specific sale of Siteserv to a company owned by Denis O'Brien was quite another. Peripheral Fine Gael involvement arose and the issue is so hot that Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy has been asked to investigate. Mr Martin needed a big issue. He may have found one.