Politics without policies for Fine Gael, as Kenny rallies his troops

'The Irish people are a first-class people and they deserve a first-class service,' said Enda
Kenny at the Fine Gael think-in, but his speech was thin on how he'll deliver that service,
while Brendan Drumm and David McWilliams avoided issues of substantive politics.
By Eoin Ó Murchú, Sara Burke and Vincent BrowneFine Gael is full of confidence and ready to take up the challenge of replacing the current Government, which has failed to deliver on its promises to the people, and replace it with one which will get things done.

This was the message which Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny sent out from the party's parliamentary get-together in Portlaoise this week. The electorate is tired of the present Government, he claimed, and ready to look for an alternative. Accordingly, while not underestimating the challenge, the Fine Gael leader claimed that the prospects were good for his party.

“There is a creeping fatigue,” he said “in the people's attitude to this Government. They are tired of their arrogance, tired of their complacency, tired of their inefficiency and tired of their inability to get things done.”

Fine Gael have identified the obvious issues of health, law and order and the economy as the ones which will be crucial in the next election, and the party was keen to play up the presence of Health Service Executive, Brendan Drumm, and television economist David McWilliams to emphasise their seriousness on these aspects.

But the party was determinedly shy about revealing details of policy on these and other issues, though Enda Kenny did concede that it will be necessary to put flesh on the skeleton programme that Fine Gael has already developed and present to the electorate a comprehensive, coherent alternative to what the present Government has to offer.

He said that he was asking the party to bring forward specific new childcare initiatives – an area which Fianna Fáil identified last week as potentially crucial in the next election.

However, it is the economy that will probably be crucial, and Fine Gael's argument here is that the Government has failed to deal efficiently with the problems of competitiveness, or to develop the infrastructure we need to maintain our current prosperity.

This is the arena of “Rip Off Ireland”, and Kenny claimed that the public response to the Rip Off Republic series on RTÉ television, and the party's own ripoff.ie website, was an endorsement of the criticism that Fine Gael initiated two years ago. He said that it was Fine Gael that coined this slogan and generated the initial debate. “It shows”, he said, “that when the party puts forward practical positive solutions, it gets a response” – though whether the party put forward solutions or rather raised questions is moot.

The party was more comfortable and assertive on law and order. This, of course, is traditional Fine Gael territory, and Enda Kenny was scathing about Justice Minister Michael McDowell's failure to deliver in this area. “Where are the extra gardaí he promised?” he asked. Nevertheless, Fine Gael declared its support for the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders proposal, which is due for discussion in the Dáil this session. Fine Gael's survey of over 700 people showed that there was strong support for this proposal, with 88 per cent of respondents complaining of an increase in anti-social behaviour.

While not yet prepared to discuss details of policy, Kenny was confident that the party was developing in the right direction. He contended that they were now in the final phase of a four-phase programme begun after the disaster of the last election. The first priority then was to get the party back up and running. Secondly, the party needed to perform well in the local and European elections to show that it had been reinvigorated, and the third phase was to confirm an electoral platform with Labour. This platform is generally agreed now, and the task facing Fine Gael, said Kenny, was to develop the policies that will attract an electorate that is disillusioned with the present Government.

“The very strong feedback we are getting,” he briefed party members, “is that the public is enthusiastic about the prospect of a Fine Gael-Labour government, and I believe that as we continue to strengthen our relationship, both parties will benefit electorally.”
He refused to give any commitment to changing taxation policy in relation to motor vehicles, but argued that the key concern of the Rip Off slogan was the waste of public resources involved in not getting projects through in quick order and within definable budgets.
“The Irish people are a first-class people,” he said, “and they deserve a first-class service.”

The implication, however, was that the criticism was more one of competence and performance than any fundamental difference on policy.

On the Groceries Order, which was designed to protect small grocery retailers from the predatory pricing policies of the large multiples, he said that this was an issue which needed reconsideration. Ironically this is what Mícheál Martin is currently doing, and every indication is that the existing Groceries Order will be modified in some shape or other.

But Kenny is confident that the agreement with Labour, while it has yet to be fully fleshed out, will provide a new context for existing policy discussions as well as bringing new ideas into the arena. He admitted to me that in developing Fine Gael's own specific policies it will be important that these should gel with what Labour will be doing, and in that regard the process of discussion between the leaderships of the two parties will intensify, he hopes.

Nor is it just a question of Labour. Kenny spoke deliberately about the issue of alternative energy sources, and while his references were vague, they were nevertheless gestures which were intended, and will be seen as being intended, to lure the Greens into firming up their preference for the Rainbow alternative after the next election.

Sinn Féin, of course, he specifically ruled out, although the explanation of why was left vague, and related to the completion of issues such as decommissioning and so on. Logically, if Sinn Féin did jump through all the hoops that Fine Gael want set for them, their participation in a Fine Gael-led administration should be as valid as that of anyone else, but the undercurrent of his reply to this question was clear: there are in fact no circumstances in which Fine Gael would agree to enter government with Sinn Féin – though equally, it must be admitted, it is doubtful whether there any circumstances in which Sinn Féin would enter government with Fine Gael.

More interesting perhaps was Kenny's rejection of contemplating a deal with the Progressive Democrats. “They are a seamless part of the present Government”, he said, “and fully share the blame for the lost opportunities”.

The presence of David McWilliams, economist/television presenter, at the Fine Gael think-in was instructive. McWilliams has captured in his Sunday Business Post column the prevailing orthodoxy of “markets über alles”. His message was that the population boom here, post the Pope's visit in 1979, has created a new demographic profile, which is changing the economy, society and politics. He talked of Laois being one of the fastest growing counties, while Longford is one of the fastest growing towns, with a young professional population who are often not from the area, living in new suburban Longford, known as “baby belt”, often referred to as “Dulchies”, ie Dubliners who move to outside of Dublin.

What is significant about this is not the clever analysis of demographics but the absence of substantive politics. In a remark before the Portlaoise meeting Enda Kenny spoke of Fine Gael publishing “winning policies”, in other words marketable policies, irrespective of substance.

Brendan Drumm of the Health Service Executive repeated to the Fine Gael audience what he had said to a media audience in Dublin the previous day. He even wore the same “Tweety Bird” tie. Drumm was fluent on problems in A&E (although Mary Harney's commitment to fix this in jig time obviously won't be realised); hospital consultants' contracts; hospital financing; and primary and community care, but not on specific commitments. His benchmark of success is the public's perception of the health services. But nothing at all about the inequalities in health, the massive disparities in premature mortality rates for all the major diseases between rich and poor, nothing about the two-tier health system.

There is still a way to go for Fine Gael before it can be confident of electoral success. It is certain to enjoy a windfall of seats, because of the constituency arithmetic, which dictates that any improvement on its 1992 performance will deliver TDs. But the windfall is unlikely to be enough to compensate for an indifferent Labour performance and significant gains for Sinn Féin. And then there is the Enda Kenny problem: will a sufficient proportion of the public accept that he would be a credible Taoiseach?π