Poll boost for Fine Gael as party

Last weekend's Sunday Business Post poll set the scene nicely for this week's Fine Gael parliamentary party ...conference in Portlaoise. The poll showed Fianna Fáil down to 32 per cent, with the combined Fine Gael-Labour vote at 38 per cent, a figure that produced broad smiles in the blueshirt ranks.

It was, of course, Fine Gael who initially coined the Rip Off Ireland slogan, and the party looks set to reap considerable rewards from the public's enthusiastic response to Eddie Hobbs's television series.

It doesn't matter whether or not the figures are correct: the point is that people believe them and want them to be correct, and that's bad news for the Government.

Fine Gael so are on a high, but there's an important caveat that should be made about the current poll results. While they are all consistent in showing Fianna Fáil to be well down on their general election figure, and therefore in line for considerable seat losses, perhaps 15 or even 20, no poll so far has shown the Rainbow alternative (even with the inclusion of the yet undeclared Greens) coming near enough to have an overall Dáil majority.

And the wild card in all of this remains Sinn Féin. There is an increasingly hysterical campaign of vilification and smear underway against Sinn Féin, both in the media and from their political opponents, but support for the party remains solid and slowly growing. So far, figures indicate that the party will increase its number of Dáil seats from five to at least nine, more probably 11 and in certain cases perhaps as many as 15.

Whichever – it looks as if Sinn Féin will hold the balance of power.

So, the new twist in the tale with the development of the Rafferty affair. Joseph Rafferty was a young man who was callously murdered as a result of a family feud between two Dublin families.  The man who is said to have killed him – and this is all hearsay opinion – has been alleged to have republican connections, and both Labour and Fianna Fáil, along with journalists like Paul Williams, have orchestrated a campaign to make Sinn Féin pay a political price for this.

The facts, however, don't support this scenario at all. The man mentioned has never ever been a member of Sinn Féin, he severed his (tenuous) links with the IRA before the ceasefires in opposition to developing republican policy, and no one in any branch of the republican movement has any more control or influence over him than, for example, journalist Paul Williams, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, or Fianna Fáil councillor Gary Keegan.

The Terrible Trio all know this, but it's a god-sent opportunity (hopefully) to cut back on Sinn Féin's electoral threat to these two parties. It will probably succeed marginally, but on the various opinion poll figures it doesn't look likely to cut much ice at the end of the day.

Fine Gael is tempted of course to get stuck in on this issue, particularly as it is fighting the Progressive Democrats for the anti-republican vote. But the party is beginning to smell more important prizes, and with the government reeling under the Rip Off assault, Fine Gael want to go for the jugular: and the key issue, as outlined in Portlaoise, is the competence and trustworthiness of the Government.

This is a well-worn Fine Gael theme, but Eddie Hobbs has given it a new lease of life, and the party now scents victory.

And so the battle lines are being drawn for the next Dáil session. Fine Gael will accuse the Government of waste and mismanagement. They will charge that despite high actual taxation (VAT receipts more or less equal income tax revenue) our services remain poor and inadequate. They will argue that the money invested has produced no appreciable results. And all of this because the Government doesn't have the political character to break away from the vested interests and the party cronies and doesn't have the ability to manage things properly.

In reply the Government (or at least Fianna Fáil) will argue that the problems we now have are the problems of success. Our economy, they will argue, remains strong and the “envy of Europe”.  Roads and other infrastructure are being improved contrary to Opposition claims and they are poised to take on the vested interests, in health, for instance, with the appointment of Brendan Drumm to head the Health Service Executive.

It will be a battle of figures and counter-claims, but it will not be a battle about substantive policy choices. Both sides will be agreed that personal taxation should be kept low and that there should be no special taxation on the highest earners, no redistribution of wealth through the tax system.

We'll see on Monday and Tuesday, when Labour hold their parliamentary think-in in Clonmel, whether Labour will claim that ground or leave it to Sinn Féin, but present indicators suggest the next election will have very little to do with policy alternatives, a factor that almost certainly will increase electoral cynicism and abstention.

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