As the Reynolds-Spring government's collapse shows, coalition parties must proceed with care, writes NOEL WHELAN
IN AUTUMN 1994 the Fianna Fáil taoiseach Albert Reynolds and the Labour tánaiste Dick Spring contorted themselves and their government into political knots over appointments to the High and Supreme courts.
For two years the parties had worked surprisingly well together, implemented a relatively impressive programme of reforming legislation and performed solidly on the economy. Reynolds and Spring worked particularly closely on Northern Ireland policy and pulled off the spectacular achievement of the IRA ceasefire announced that August.
However, tensions intensified over who should be chief justice and president of the High Court. Ultimately in mid-October a string of Labour backbenchers went on Sunday's This Weekprogramme, essentially calling on Dick Spring to back down, implying it was of blind indifference to the populace who sat in what judicial chair.
That night Reynolds agreed judicial appointment reform in return for which Spring implied he would allow Reynolds to appoint attorney general Harry Whelehan to the High Court presidency. There the controversy rested until a week later when a delay in the attorney general’s office in the handling of extradition warrants for Fr Brendan Smyth was revealed, causing a political storm that brought down the government.
Those events in autumn 1994 should act as a salutary warning to the current Coalition. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have been extraordinarily reckless with their Dáil majority in recent weeks. Having managed to chart carefully through many big challenges, it is absurd that stag hunting and dog breeding should have created such instability.
The lead-up to the summer recess is always the most politically charged time of the year. The Green Party leadership was naive to think it could push this legislation now without damaging Government stability. Animal welfare concerns are a minority issue even in urban, middle-class Ireland and even in boom times. In a recession, giving these issues such priority to pander to grassroot activists is politically self-indulgent.
Forcing through this Bill without a better effort to explain themselves to Fianna Fáil backbenchers and Independents who support the Government was just stupid. There is every possibility the Greens’ cavalier attitude has brought forward their day of reckoning with the electorate.
However, those on the Fianna Fáil side who have huffed and puffed in response are equally guilty. Some backbenchers just haven’t appreciated the numerical realities of this Government’s majority. They are not in a single-party majority situation. In the 2007 election Fianna Fáil lost seats and was left unable to form a majority even with the Progressive Democrats. That’s why Bertie Ahern constructed what he hoped would endure as a rock solid majority, a Fianna Fáil-led government supported by the two PDs, three independents signed up to a pact, and six Green Party TDs.
Fianna Fáil backbenchers also need to remember that the party has lost three seats since the 2007 election through the death of Séamus Brennan, the resignation of Martin Cullen and the transfer of Pat the Cope Gallagher to Brussels.
Uncomfortable as it may be for many in Fianna Fáil, having the Greens in Government is no longer a luxury, it is an absolute necessity. They need the Greens to survive and a price must be paid. It may be peculiar that the Greens are exacting the price in animal welfare legislation rather than environmental policy but Fianna Fáil backbenchers will just have to grin and bear it unless they too want to face and be savaged by the electorate soon.
Tensions on these topics was entirely foreseeable if not when the government was formed then certainly when the renewed programme for government was negotiated last autumn. It is strange that inter-party relationships were not better managed. Where was the strategy that should have been in place over the last year to address the safe passage of this legislation?
Fianna Fáil’s new chief whip John Curran has proved effective, but he is being asked to do too much, too late in the day. He did manage to hold most of his backbenchers on the stag-hunting Bill. The loss of Mattie McGrath has positives as well as negatives for those trying to manage party cohesion.
Curran also seems to have scoped the type of amendments that should ensure the passage of the dog breeding Bill next week. It is strange, however, that just six days before voting it is unclear what amendments will be made.
The task facing Curran will be all the more difficult before the next budget because on top of tight Dáil arithmetic he will have to contend with two enduring legacies from this week’s events. There will be growing resentment and even anger towards the Green Party on the Fianna Fáil backbenches. Much of this anger may be displaced but it is all the more destabilising as a result.
Curran’s second problem is that this week Jackie Healy Rae and Michael Lowry broke the habit of voting with the Government, which they had done solidly since 2007. Even though they are likely to vote with the Government next week, their ties have loosened.