Government's political difficulties are far from over, but at least it's asserting its authority, writes Noel Whelan
ACCORDING TO Jewish folklore, King Solomon once assembled his wise men together and asked them to find a cure for depression. Having meditated for a long time they advised him to have a ring made engraved with the words "this too shall pass".
Their advice to Solomon is the only comfort on which Government advisers and Fianna Fáil party managers could draw last Saturday afternoon when details of the Sunday Business Post Red C poll came through on texts.
Fianna Fáil ratings, which held up surprisingly well over the summer months, were always going to be down after the Budget. The over-70s medical card controversy meant that expectations had been lowered even further.
However, the revelation that the party's level of support was as low as 26 per cent was a real shock.
As the cliche goes, opinion polls are snapshots in time and the timing of this poll could not have been worse for the Government. The phone work for the Red C poll was conducted the previous Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday when the controversy about medical cards was still raging.
Phone polling tends to measure a more impulsive response than traditional polling methods which involve sitting down with voters in their homes. Many people responded to the Budget proposal with anger, and so the Red C poll may have reflected this more sharply.
However, none of this takes from the fact that the Government, and Fianna Fáil in particular, has had a torrid few weeks and now stands at the lowest recorded ratings ever.
Nonetheless, hitting rock bottom can be liberating. Whereas advisers and party managers may have been badly shaken by the poll results, one gets the sense that Ministers themselves were more sanguine. They have had months to absorb the scale of the economic crisis and to appreciate that it would come with a political downside.
Economic predictions in the current environment are uncertain, but it is hoped that Ministers have access to some of the best information available and so will also appreciate that the public finances, and the economy generally, could get a lot worse before they get better.
There must, for example, be a concern that income tax receipts due to be filed by the self-employed this month will fall below even modified expectations, and that unemployment in labour-intensive industries like construction and hospitality could rise further.
Both the Fianna Fáil and Green components of the Cabinet now appear to collectively realise that, notwithstanding the political consequences in the short term and irrespective of whether things can be turned around before the next scheduled date for a general election, they must dramatically reduce public expenditure over the next three years.
The Government did itself no further harm this week. It withstood the onslaught over education cuts, comfortably winning the vote on the Labour Party motion. It also began to get its act together in terms of both political and media management.
Ministers should have better laid the groundwork for the Budget by more bluntly and effectively communicating the scale of the economic crisis to the electorate.
The public read newspapers and listened to radio coverage in July and August which was laden with recession stories, and in September and October with stories about the global financial crisis.
They therefore had some appreciation of the difficulties, but may not have appreciated how much things had deteriorated since the summer, or the extent to which this would have real implications for them personally in the Budget.
Communicating the complexity of the current economic difficulties, and ensuring the public appreciate it, is best done in set piece speeches or extended interviews, rather than on-the-run doorstep comment to the media pack.
The Taoiseach's speech to the Economist magazine conference on Thursday was useful in that context, not least because it included bite-sized illustrations of how precarious the public finances are. He pointed out, for example, that one of every 10 euro spent on public service next year will have to be borrowed.
Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe also put in a good performance this week and other Ministers could learn from his firm, but amiable approach.
It contrasted well with the angry hyperbole of Labour Party spokespeople.
O'Keeffe managed to communicate to the wider electorate that education spending has actually been increased, and that the increase in class sizes is a temporary measure necessitated by a worsening economic situation.
He also usefully reminded voters that while teachers may couch their arguments in language of concern for children they also have a distinct, and at times conflicting, interest in preserving their own pay and working conditions.
Even after the hullabaloo of recent weeks and amendments to proposals on disability payments and over-70s medical cards, the bottom line Budget figures are still very much intact, and the substance of the budgetary strategy will be enacted in the Finance Bill within weeks.
The resolve shown by Green Party Ministers has been particularly impressive; not only did they keep their party united, they also managed to ignore media and Opposition taunts and focused instead on governing in the national interest.
Our political system is currently working through the trauma and denial that goes with receiving difficult economic news. The Government's political difficulties are far from over, but at least it has now begun to assert its authority.