As the general election campaign enters its final phase Fine Gael has sought to focus attention on economic issues and the need for stability and prudence in a bid to win over voters nervous about the future.
While Simon Harris continues to criss-cross the country – he whooped it up at a party rally in Co Meath at lunchtime on Wednesday – the party has put out Minister for Public Expenditure (and former minister for finance) Paschal Donohoe at every opportunity to beat the drum for his favourite subject: prudence.
A glance at the party’s media schedule in the past week shows just how much it has turned to Donohoe as the main vector for its economic message.
Last Friday and Saturday, with a week to go and Fine Gael already growing nervous about its stumbling in the polls, Donohoe was presiding at policy launches on rejuvenating Dublin and on “making work pay”.
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On Sunday, he was the party’s representative on the flagship RTÉ show The Week in Politics.
On Monday, after news broke about Fine Gael’s slump in The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll, he was standing beside Harris at Airfield Park in south Co Dublin to talk about small business.
On Tuesday, he was out at Microsoft in Sandyford,, talking about the need for economic stability and the importance of maintaining Ireland’s attractiveness to foreign direct investment. That evening he was debating with fellow finance spokesmen on Virgin Media.
On Wednesday he was out again, jousting with Opposition finance representatives on Claire Byrne’s show on RTÉ radio, before scooting back to his constituency to launch an advertisement with Dublin North-West candidate Noel Rock. The theme: don’t let Sinn Féin turn out the lights on Ireland’s economy.
Then he was off to Trim, Co Meath – again with his leader – to speak at a rally, or more accurately, a group of supporters having tea and sandwiches.
At such an uncertain time in world affairs, Harris told the cheering Fine Gaelers, “I’d much rather have Paschal Donohoe in charge of our national finances than any other party!”.
Donohoe’s move to the centre of the party’s campaign sees it choosing to emphasise, in the final days, the threats to Ireland’s economic fortunes. Partly this is a response to the growing storm cloud emanating from Washington. But it’s also a tacit acknowledgement that the blizzard of promises that characterised the early part of the campaign – abolish the means test for the carers’ grant, abolish university fees, give €1,000 to every newborn, double child benefit in August, and so on – have not landed as comfortably with voters as the party would have liked.
Maybe because it’s hard to ride two horses, politically: you can go big on the giveaways, or you can go big on prudence; but it’s hard to do both.
In truth, Donohoe never looked especially comfortable with the big giveaways. It’s said within Government that the Budget was rather more generous than he would have liked, and the torrent of promises from Fine Gael in the first half of the campaign made him uneasy. He seems much more content with advocating for prudence – even if all those giveaways are still in the Fine Gael manifesto.
The targeting of Sinn Féin on the economy has been dubbed “Project Fear” – an attempt to scare people away from that party’s offer of change. “Project Truth”, said Harris on Wednesday. Donohoe stood just behind him, nodding emphatically.
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