THERE IS something quite unusual and unprecedented happening within Fianna Fáil which has never been witnessed before in the party’s long history. It must seem bizarre to many of its thousands of members and supporters; to others, grotesque. Fianna Fáil has lost confidence in itself as the national movement which has governed this State, more often for good than bad when difficult decisions on contraception, divorce and the Northern Ireland peace process had to be made in this generation. But now there is abundant evidence that Fianna Fáil has lost its faith. It is in a state of unprecedented crisis.
There was never a general election campaign where Fianna Fáil did not assert publicly - despite what it might believe privately - that it could win and form the next government. It is understandable, given the succession of opinion polls, that it would feel it was destined for opposition on this occasion. But it has no strategic sense of its electoral position now. It has lost sight of its customary ingenuity in accepting, abjectly, such a state of affairs. Even in the Haughey era, its self-image was never so low. It was one of Fianna Fáil’s strategic successes then to know that it had to move from the core value of single-party government to coalitions in order to remain in power. This decision has guaranteed its participation in government for almost 20 years.
It is extraordinary the way in which the party now openly accepts that it is doomed to opposition, and maybe not just for five, but ten years. The high-profile figures who have benefited from the party’s profile over the past 13 years in government are standing down in swarms. What is different now is that they are thinking mé féin. There are three Cabinet Ministers - Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey, and Tony Killeen; Minister of State Michael Finneran; and many other TDs. Some of them are retiring for health or age reasons but others are just opting out to protect their pensions or because they believe they are heading for electoral defeat.
There was never such a situation in Fianna Fáil before. If it was required that an ageing TD should stand again to protect a seat, he did so. The party was paramount and that was what guaranteed Fianna Fáil’s claim to be a national movement. It would now appear that that belief in itself has dissipated and the spirit of Fianna Fáil is gone. That change in the party’s political psychology is undoubtedly the reason why the key aspirant leaders, Micheál Martin, Brian Lenihan and Mary Hanafin, think that they would have a better chance of being re-elected in Cork South-Central, Dublin West and Dun Laoghaire as potential taoisigh than as Fianna Fáil Ministers or TDs. This is another manifestation of the new policy of individualism in Fianna Fáil.
The sad reality is that those aspiring to leadership themselves do not have the courage to offer the vision to take Fianna Fáil out of its mire. So maybe a better case could be made by the younger generation to renew the party.