Inside politics:The tide of public opinion appears to have turned decisively against Fianna Fáil, going by the findings of The Irish TimesTNS mrbi opinion poll, but the party's TDs have the enormous consolation that they are in power and the next election is a political lifetime away, writes Stephen Collins
"It's a bit like being hammered in the first round of the National League after winning the All-Ireland final. It's not pleasant but there is plenty of time to recover before the championship starts," said one Fianna Fáil TD. For the Opposition the feeling is the exact opposite. "Why does this only happen now? Why couldn't it have happened back in May?" asked a mournful Fine Gael politician.
The real sickener for the Opposition is that they had Fianna Fáil on the ropes at the beginning of the election campaign and even for a good portion of the campaign itself. The sequence of Irish Times polls in April and May showed that the surge for Fianna Fáil that carried the party back to power emerged very late in the day, but the timing was perfect.
The more pessimistic TDs on the Opposition benches wonder if they can ever get the better of Fianna Fáil in the only contest that counts, regardless of what happens between elections. This feeling is particularly strong among the long-serving deputies who are facing yet another spell in Opposition and are beginning to despair of ever making it into office.
The more hopeful souls in the Opposition, usually the newer TDs, look at it differently. They see comparisons between the Fianna Fáil victory in May and John Major's surprise election victory for the British Conservatives back in 1992.
In both cases the long established party of power appeared to be on the way to defeat but the electorate pulled back at the last moment because it was not convinced the alternative on offer had the capacity to run the country.
In the British case the surprise Tory victory quickly led to public disillusionment as the government was beset by one disaster after another. The end result was the crushing defeat of 1997 and the emergence of Labour as the natural party of power for the following decade and possibly far longer. Of course there is a strong element of wish fulfilment among Fine Gael TDs who cite the analogy, but it is worth considering.
Just imagine if Fine Gael and Labour had managed to eke out a few more seats in the May election and the succession of controversial policy decisions and cock-ups that we have seen in resent months had followed. In that scenario it would already be widely accepted that Enda Kenny was not up to the job and that a three-party coalition supported by a few Independents was a recipe for disaster.
The worrying thing for Fianna Fáil is not one poll setback, but the growing sense that the party has been so long in power that it is out of touch with the feelings of ordinary people. The reaction of the Taoiseach and his Ministers to criticism of their enormous pay increases indicated that they are not exactly in tune with the feelings of the majority of people struggling to make a living.
One of the most striking figures in the small print of the poll was the substantial drop for the party among lower middle class and working class voters. The party's vote held up well among the professional classes and the higher-ranking public servants who have done well out of the boom, but the serious slippage in its hinterland will be a cause of deep worry.
The other side of that coin is that Fine Gael and Labour have moved into the territory being lost by Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael has managed to break out of its traditional middle class base and the party's vote is now evenly spread across all social classes. If it can consolidate that position the party could really challenge Fianna Fáil in the future. Labour's vote is also up significantly among working class voters and again it has grounds for believing that it can build on that position.
Fianna Fáil strategists can rightly point to the fact that the party suffered a similar slump after the 2002 election, yet it was able to come back and win in 2007.
One point of difference, though, is that Fine Gael and Labour were not nearly as strong in 2002 as they are now. The voters shifting out of the Fianna Fáil camp are now going directly to the main Opposition parties rather than to smaller parties or Independents, and that has the potential to change the political dynamic in the longer term.
The drop in support for Fianna Fáil is matched by the level of dissatisfaction with the Taoiseach and the Government. What is striking, though, is that the rating of the Tánaiste, Brian Cowen, runs counter to the generally negative trend for the Government.
Cowen's satisfaction rating was measured for the first time because it is the first TNS mrbi poll since he became Tánaiste in June. The satisfaction rating of the Tánaiste has been measured in the poll for the past 15 years, although before June of this year the person occupying that post was the leader of another party in a coalition government.
Although Cowen is not a party leader, he is in a unique position as Bertie Ahern has indicated not only that he will be standing down before the next election but that he would like to see his Tánaiste succeed him in the top position. The rating achieved by Cowen will be reassuring for Fianna Fáil supporters as it indicates that he already has wide voter appeal.
The question about the succession shows that Cowen has established himself in the eyes of the voters as the most likely person to take over from Ahern, but there is still a glimmer of hope for other possible contenders, depending on when the contest takes place. The emergence of Brian Lenihan in joint second place with Micheál Martin, after just six months in the Cabinet, is the real surprise.
Lenihan has had a very impressive start as Minister for Justice and his stature should grow as he gains experience. However, justice is one of the toughest departments of state where a myriad of things can go wrong, so it will be interesting to see if his standing with the public as a potential leader is enhanced over time.
Whatever happens the Fianna Fáil succession is going to be one of the big political issues of the 30th Dáil. The circumstance and the timing of Ahern's departure will attract ever more attention as time passes.