Fine Gael optimism and the faint hope of government

The Fine Gael Ard Fheis will be high on expectation, low on specifics.

There is energy about Fine Gael now which has been absent for 20 years. It is born of an optimism that the debacle of the 2002 election under Michael Noonan was an aberration; that the easy charm of Enda Kenny will be sufficient to distract from his "gravitas-deficiency"; and most of all, that there is a weariness on the part of the electorate with a Government which will have been in office for a decade by the time the next general election is expected.

There is another reason for the optimism and it is that, for all the apprehension that Pat Rabbitte embarrassingly would eclipse Enda Kenny as the real leader of the opposition, this has not happened – in part because Enda Kenny has emerged as sharper than expected, in part because Pat Rabbitte has disappointed.

There is more to Enda Kenny than many had perceived when he became leader in chaotic and despairing circumstances (for Fine Gael) in 2002. In 27 years in the Dáil (he is 30 years a Dail deputy this year) he had said almost nothing of note. In the leadership campaign in both 2001, after John Bruton was ditched, and in 2002, after Michael Noonan imploded, he again said nothing of consequence. "A dumb blond" was how one of his adversaries described him, coining a phrase first used cruelly but perceptively by Pat Rabbitte about a former Fianna Fáil minister.

Enda Kenny has proved more formidable than then feared. His Dáil performances are no longer embarrassing. His party can trust him not to discomfort them in media interviews and he has come up with some telling one-liners to unsettle Bertie Ahern. Credit for this must go in part to Anton Savage, son of Terry Prone, the media guru, and Tom Savage, who succeeded in domesticating Albert Reynolds for a while. Anton Savage, at least in the first year of Enda Kenny's leadership, gave hours of grooming to Kenny and gradually observed an improvement, if not a transformation.

Enda Kenny is also blessed by the mood of the party for which he is of course partly responsible but by no means entirely responsible. For the first time, perhaps, in a generation, the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party is happy. The internal acrimonies and rivalries are gone – Alan Dukes and John Bruton have departed and Michael Noonan has gone off the radar, for now at least.

The mood is influenced of course by the expectation that virtually all of the sitting TDs will retain their seats at the next election and there is a virtual certainty that, barring a faux pas, Fine Gael will gain at least 10 seats – Enda Kenny is talking of gaining 20. There is also satisfaction that this time Labour is not hesitating about a pre-election pact. Indeed Pat Rabbitte has played into Fine Gael hands by committing himself to a pact in advance of agreement on policies – what cards can he play now on the policy agenda? Fine Gael is confident it can reign him back on his equivocation on raising capital gains tax, for instance, and on getting its way on any policy issue it deems essential. Not that there is any significant divergence on policy for both parties are committed to giving the electorate what they think the electorate wants.

Enda Kenny has promised an avalanche of policies before the election and if this transpires these will be authored almost entirely by the only remaining policy-wonk in Fine Gael, Richard Bruton. More likely however the party will focus on the perceived failures of the present government, with special emphasis on stealth taxes and the massive public expenditure wastages.

But a ten to 15 seat gain, public weariness with the Government and a re-invigorated Fine Gael may not be enough. Even if the party were to gain 15 seats (a total of 46), Labour cannot be relied upon to improve the numbers significantly (best expectation 25 seats), which would given them a total of 71 seats, far short of the required 84 seats to form a majority government. Even with six Green seats (no change on 2002) that would still fall short by seven.

Meanwhile Fianna Fáil, even from a base of 70 seats, would be in a preferred position to contrive a deal with the "gene poor" and then with Labour or Sinn Féin. And Labour can't be trusted (by Fine Gael) not to defect if the sums don't add up.