Fianna Fáil in no mood for criticism

Fianna Fáil is settling back into government firm in its conviction of success and impatient of the policy criticisms they endured in the election campaign.

There is, indeed, an air of complacency in their ranks, a sense that they don't have to bother about the criticisms of their opponents: after all, they won and the opponents lost!

The minor concessions made to the Greens on environmental management – a level of concession about commensurate with the Greens' electoral strength – are underpinned by a determination to push through with existing government policies in all other areas.

There is no sense at all that the party had a lucky escape, and that the palpable unease with health and education, transport and housing should be mollified.

It's a bit arrogant perhaps to suggest that this is a mistake, but the reality is that Fianna Fáil were not punished over the public disquiet about the hospital crisis, or unease about co-location and the entrenchment of private medicine within the system as a solution, and so on, but only because the opposition did not come across as having any better overall package to offer.

And on the economy, of course, there was a real concern that the rainbow might mess up our existing prosperity without any real compensation in the areas of health and social policy.

Fianna Fáil recognise, too, that there is no coherent opposition to them in the Dáil. Fine Gael's natural home is to the right of Fianna Fáil, but for strategic electoral reasons the party feels the need to pander, to some extent, to Labour sensitivities on the left of centre.

Neither Labour nor Sinn Féin have yet determined what type of response they will put up, with Labour still floundering as an appendage of Fine Gael and Sinn Féin denied speaking rights in a stroke the unionists would have been proud of.

Fianna Fáil, of course, don't care about this: vae victis (woe to the vanquished).

Yet public disquiet is there. The board of Tallaght hospital might have surrendered to the co-location policy, but not out of conviction. They surrendered because the HSE made it clear to them that extra beds would not be provided in any other way.

The stability of the housing market is a fine slogan, and “worries” about negative equity make fine headlines, but the bottom line is that not enough houses are being provided in the social and affordable areas so that people on the average wage can afford their own homes. Instead they are being driven into the rented sector, at the mercy of the landlord investors and speculators for whom special incentives are still made available.

Bertie Ahern may be a “socialist”, but it is a “socialism” that has little care for those left behind in the system. Norman Tebbitt's “get on your bike” approach sums up the mentality of the self-made men from ‘humble' backgrounds who make up Bertie's entourage of friends and close advisers.

Trying to get a grip on what Fianna Fáil stands for is a bit like trying to pick up mercury: it slithers all over the place; but despite the rhetoric on speaking up for the plain people and upholding the rights of the Irish nation, Fianna Fáil's practise is almost always contrary to these interests.

Fianna Fáil do represent the plain people, but it is a plain people stratified between those who have and those who don't. While the party is always willing to sway according to the strength of the pressure on them from left or right, there is no pressure on them at all at the moment, and it will be tAutumn at least – and possibly not even then – before any pressure begins to be developed.

On the national question, the isolation of Sinn Féin has confirmed Fianna Fáil in the view that this is an issue which will not cost them anything. The Northern settlement, which Sinn Féin sees as an interim step on the way to reunification, is seen by Fianna Fáil as a “durable settlement”. In other words, unless Fianna Fáil come under pressure, this is as far as the party will go: partition can be accepted so long as Catholics are treated with equality.

Equally, Fianna Fáil is confident that it can continue to support European integration, opposing only those measures that might introduce real social equality.

This, indeed, is a monolith with its finger close to the pulse of the Irish nation. It is a monolith which is now sitting back and enjoying the fruits of victory.

Of course, this is an interim time for Fianna Fáil as well, as the party begins the run-in to Bertie Ahern's departure and Brian Cowen's accession to the throne. Cowen is a conviction politician unlike Bertie, but he is a very pragmatic one. The fundamental parameters will not be changed unless public disquiet becomes a real factor and an opposition emerges that can champion that disquiet and genuinely create a mood for change.

But don't hold your breath.

Eoin Ó Murchú is the Eagraí Polaitíochta of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. He is writing here in a personal capacity.

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