Signs of an unhealthy Government

The Dáil has broken up for the summer recess, but Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney, certainly made sure that it went out on a bang with her bombshell announcement that she did not intend to ensure risk equalisation in the health insurance business for the time being.

Basically, this means that the British company BUPA – which as a new entrant into the Irish market has a higher proportion of low-risk young people – will have its private profits boosted by not having to compensate VHI for the higher proportion of higher risk, middle-aged and old people that they have as clients.

It's a decision that will almost certainly see VHI premiums going up, and that's unlikely to be popular with the middle-aged middle-class voter who is a core staple of Fianna Fáil support.

Given the still prevailing mood of uncertain dissatisfaction with the Government – and health issues are a big factor in that – it shows that, while election victory is still highly problematic, there is a real basis for Fine Gael optimism as the opinion polls are indicating, but only if that party can take political – as opposed to organisational – advantage of the Government's difficulties.

After the last election, most commentators, including myself, wrote-off Fine Gael as not being able to lead a coherent challenge to the Government. Discussions of FG-Labour alliances centred on asking how could Labour do it with a lame duck Fine Gael by their side. That question is no longer asked, and last year's local and European elections, as well as the most recent opinion polls, show Fine Gael is very much reinvigorated, with the problem now being how to ensure that Labour doesn't flounder.

Great credit is due to Enda Kenny for this turnaround in Fine Gael's fortunes. He has achieved the first part of his objective in rebuilding the party organisation and giving it confidence and organisational professionalism. He is now genuinely engaging in a tactical appraisal that will try to ensure that while Fine Gael realises its election potential it does so with the least damage to Labour.

Credit should also be given to Phil Hogan, whose strategic nous has been invaluable in the rebuilding of Fine Gael and the defining of their electoral targets.

All of this has been achieved against a background of continuing dissatisfaction with the Government, and yet something is still missing.

Loss of support for Fianna Fáil will not yet translate into support for the Rainbow alternative unless the Rainbow can convince voters that it has better policies. At the moment, Fianna Fáil losses are most likely to be to the benefit of Sinn Féin and independents.

This is not a question of cobbling together a joint programme for Government in time for the election. Both Fine Gael and Labour, but especially Fine Gael, need to define their political character by using the Dáil platform to show themselves as having a distinctive, and potentially successful, political vision of their own.

In this regard, the Fine Gael front bench has failed to set the world on fire. Its performance has been lacklustre and sporadic, and too inclined to stick to populist carping about inadequacies in the execution of policy rather than a clear challenge to the type of policies being put forward by the Government.

For a long time, Richard Bruton was left like a lone striker up front, bringing forward new ideas, putting criticisms into a political context and generally being the lone voice to indicate that their might be alternative policies that could work better.

But it seems to me that Richard has gone off the boil for some time now. He needs more support, and it seems absurd that someone so supremely talented as Michael Noonan – a man incidentally who well understands the risk equalisation issues in health insurance – should be playing a junior role.

The traditional Fine Gael approach to politics has been rather gentlemanly and laid back. And while the strategy teams are obviously working overtime under Phil Hogan's guidance, policy is being left to fend for itself. But if Fine Gael is serious about attempting to get back into Government, this summer cannot be a time of rest for the party, it must be used to prepare for an autumn offensive to let Fine Gael explain to the electorate exactly what the party stands for, rather than nitpick at the points it stands against.

It is an axiom among political commentators that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them, but for Fine Gael to assume that the prize will just fall into their lap will ensure that it won't.

Even so, the task is daunting. The combined votes of FG, Labour and the Greens may be more than the combined votes of the Government parties, but it's still not enough to form a government. A seismic change is needed, and I still don't think that that can be done. But if it is to be done, it will only be done on the back of policy alternatives not on the back of pacts and alliances.

That's Fine Gael's challenge, and the autumn will tell us whether or not the party has been able to step up to the mark.

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