O'Cuiv: 'I'm proud of what I've done'

Cormac O’Malley interviews Éamon Ó Cuív.

Deputy Ó Cuív, Fianna Fáil is currently made up of 20 TDs in Dáil Éireann. Did you expect your party to lose as many seats as you did? And do you think it was about time that your party be out of power?

Well to answer the second part of the question, it’s probably a pity that we won the 2007 election. If a party is in government for too long, then people will always think that an alternative of some sort is better. So I do think that it’s about time Fianna Fáil be out of power yes. Whether I thought Fianna Fáil would do as badly as they did; I expected that we would lose a lot of seats. So I did think it was going to be bad. Although there were a lot of seats we lost by a little bit. Unfortunately, that’s the way it worked out. In a lot of constituencies we were the last person standing. Such is the way of politics.

Some may say that this is the end of the Fianna Fáil colossus that has dominated Irish politics for so long. Do you think that Fianna Fáil can ever recover and return to what it once was?

Well I certainly think that it can go back to being a major party yes. Fianna Fáil has cumanns in Roscommon, Donegal, Mayo, to but name very few. The grassroots of the party far exceeds the number of seats in Dáil Éireann. Our organisation hasn’t disappeared suddenly, nor will it. The organisation is the party.

So you’re convinced that the party needs a radical change in not only its outlook, but in the way it does business also?

I think we need to examine everything. The way the party is structured, its policies, what it stands for. Also, it needs to show that it’s there for all members of the community; particularly the working classes. It needs to be a party based on idealism. One of the advantages of being out of power is that you have fewer people who just want power and more who have an ideal and a common cause

‘Zombie-banks’ is a term commonly used by the likes of Fintan O’Toole. When such a term is used we immediately think of one bank, Anglo-Irish bank. How can you morally justify the bailout of such a bank?

Well it depends on who you are bailing out. The reality is that the shareholders, the owners of the bank, lost all their money. We nationalised on that basis. Despite what people say, NAMA vigorously pursues those who owe money to the bank. The government never paid out on the subordinated bonds. So then you might ask ‘who do we bail out?’ First tier bondholders and depositors make up approximately €54billion. So let’s not forget that. Secondly, the consequences of allowing the deposit level of the bank to fall would have led to the collapse of the entire financial system. So you might then ask ‘why not let the tier one bondholders fall?’ Well first off, that’s a legal impossibility. The next problem was, if you paid back the depositors in the short term and not the first term bondholders; they would bring down the bank. As I said, it’s certainly not legally possible either. Also, people forget that it’s hard to differentiate between the bondholders that are Irish and are not and the bondholders that are rich and are not. If you burn all bondholders, a populist proposal, then people would be too afraid to invest in a bank and thus help the bank survive.

Staying on the subject of banking, I think it was your colleague, Timmy Dooley TD, who recently said that the government is adopting the same banking policy and programme for government as Fianna Fáil. Would you agree with his view?

Well essentially they are. Originally they weren’t faced with the possibility of making certain decisions. They also weren’t faced with the facts. But what the government hopes to do is exactly what Fianna Fáil would pursue, the lowering of the interest rates. We would have, as the government does, a unilateral position.

Every day we’re hearing new figures. Many of the most respected economists worldwide are saying that we must default now and if we don’t do so, we will have no choice but to do so, in an inevitably worse future.

Well it’s not possible to default on a unilateral basis if you’re part of the Eurozone. If you did so, you would then not get the money necessary to run the country day to day. This is a pan European problem, not a uniquely Irish problem. Anybody who thinks that a unilateral default is necessary obviously has a lot of money and doesn’t care about the ordinary people who depend on the services of the state. And in fairness to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, he was right to refute and rule out the speculation and suggestions of Morgan Kelly; a man who doesn’t live day to day on the same planet as you and I.

To borrow from the slogan used in 1997 by the British Labour Party, do you think that things can only get better from here?

I believe that we have a great country and that a lot of things are going for us. Such as our exports, our education system, great land, our tourism industry. We have a lot of strengths. I believe passionately in the people of this country and I believe that we can return to being a viable, independent nation. I hope that we come out of this crisis wiser and stronger. And we will come out of this crisis.

What do you think your grandfather Éamon de Valera would say about Fianna Fáil were he here today? And what do you think are the major differences and similarities between Fianna Fáil as it is now and the party that he had in mind?

The first thing we should understand is that DeValera’s preoccupation was with the country. Fianna Fáil was a mere vehicle for pursuing his ideals. You don’t do what you do on the basis of what he would have done. If Fianna Fáil can’t be an ideologically-driven party, then maybe it’s time to find another vehicle to pursue our republican ideals. I believe that the basic party still has a common purpose and strong grassroots nationwide.

Your party leader, Micheál Martin, is now leader of the opposition. Do you ever feel a certain amount of envy and think that that could or should be you?

No I never feel such things. Micheál won the leadership battle and I accept that. I put myself forward, and I was unsuccessful. I don’t want my family name to make people presume that I should be party leader. If anything, my family name is a bit of a hindrance, as people regularly ask me what my grandfather would think. I try to escape such wonders. But I fully stand by and support Micheál Martin as leader of Fianna Fáil.

To end on a possibly morose note, any regrets?

I think every day of our lives we make mistakes. I’m proud of what I’ve done thus far as a politician. If you travel around this country, you can see a good legacy in which I had input as a minister. If you’re too worried about making mistakes, you’ll never do anything. Looking forward is much more important than the past. I suppose there are things I would do differently yes. All the same, I follow the most important slogan “I cannot change anything that happened yesterday. But I can influence what will happen tomorrow.”