Politics

A new government, but little changes as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael return

Although there is a new government, Irish politics has not changed all that much

Simon Harris's Fine Gael and Micheál Martin's Fianna Fáil have paid a steep price for support from the Regional Independents Group and Healy-Rae brothers. Photograph: Alan Betson
Simon Harris's Fine Gael and Micheál Martin's Fianna Fáil have paid a steep price for support from the Regional Independents Group and Healy-Rae brothers. Photograph: Alan Betson
Pat Leahy's picture
Pat Leahy
Thu Jan 16 2025 - 06:00

If the new government looks like it’s just a straight swap between the Green Party and a bunch of Independents, that’s because, largely, it is.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are back. Roads are back. The climate targets are still there, but will they be achieved? Eamon Ryan and all his “nonsense” — as Danny Healy-Rae put it — is out. Danny, his brother Michael and another Michael (Lowry) and his gang — they’re in. “Mad referendums”, in the description of one government figure, are out. “Common sense” (Danny again) is in.

The Greens pushed Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in a direction that was uncomfortable for the bigger parties but they went along with it because they are supreme pragmatists and they needed the Greens. Now they don’t. So this government will be less progressive, less climate-focused and less woke.

Last week, the Green Party gathered for its national conference and tried to look on the bright side. The reality is the party has been removed completely from the business end of Irish politics.

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The government will be faced with all the same problems of housing and public services and inadequate infrastructure that the last administration struggled to get to grips with. And on housing especially, they are faced with a huge challenge of delivery. But when you step back from it and consider what has changed in the Republic’s government, it’s the obvious answer: the Greens are gone.

Pat Leahy, Political Editor of The Irish Times, explains the latest developments in the formation of a Government. Video: Chris Maddaloni

In their place comes the Regional Independents Group (Rig), conceived, convened and largely organised by Tipperary Independent Michael Lowry, who has moved back to the centre of Irish politics after an exile which began nearly 30 years ago.

The Rig finalised their deal on Tuesday, bagging two super-junior minister roles, which sit at cabinet though not with the full status of cabinet ministers and two other junior posts. Later that evening, the Healy-Raes also struck a deal at Government Buildings, the two men (and their sons Jackie and Johnny) appeared on the Leinster House plinth the following morning to confirm that Michael would be a junior minister.

So nine Independents are now committed to serving in and supporting the new coalition — a number that gives them a hefty majority of 17, 95 votes to 78 in the new Dáil. The Independents didn’t get everything they wanted. Lowry’s group wanted a Cabinet post and the Healy-Raes wanted a super-junior role, but in the arithmetic of government formation (and remember that politicians all care a lot about jobs for politicians) five ministerial jobs for nine votes is a very good price for the seller.

So why did the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael pay such a hefty price? They were, after all, only one vote short of a bare Dáil majority and could have managed it with just the Healy-Raes.

According to people involved in the process, the desire for stability — especially strong in the architects of this administration, given their trepidation about what may be heading for the Republic from across the Atlantic — was translated into a willingness to cough up so many jobs. All governments suffer from political attrition, losing TDs through local difficulties, personal issues, and the political pressure of being a backbench TD supporting sometimes unpopular governments. With a majority of 17, this coalition has a decent insurance policy against that.

There is also another reason that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil sought the support of as many Independents as possible. The experience of Fine Gael (closely watched by Fianna Fáil) in the 2016-2020 government was not, to put it mildly, a universally satisfactory one.

As veterans of that administration recall, every week (an exaggeration, no doubt) the Independents had some difficulty with a Private Members’ motion that they didn’t want to vote against.

But the Fine Gael-led government couldn’t do the Dáil numbers without them. And the Independents knew it.

Does a junior ministry dilute the Healy-Rae brand?

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So the Government had to perform all sorts of political gymnastics to keep the Independents happy. This time, says one high-ranking insider, there’ll be none of that. If one of the Independents has a difficulty, “he can hop off”. Though the source did not exactly say “hop off”. The more Independents there are, the weaker their individual leverage.

At the urging of Lowry, the Independents have been keen to present themselves as effectively a political party — negotiating as a bloc and promising that all of their members, not just the ministers, will support the government in “good days and bad”. We’ll see about that.

But you can be sure that the backbench independents have expectations about a long list of constituency issues that they will expect movement on. The incoming government was insistent that “no constituency deals have been done with the Independents” and the Independents have been cute enough not to contradict them. For now, anyway.

It may well be true that there is no written list supplied by each Independent and agreed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael negotiators. But it stretches credulity to suggest that the Independents will not seek and gain preferential treatment for specific requests about projects in their constituencies and then claim credit for it. Because that’s what they believe works with the voters. There’s a new government all right; but Irish politics hasn’t changed that much.