A year to forget in the life of Brian
THE last year has been the worst time in my memory of living here in Ireland, and I think even if he was Mother Teresa, he wouldn’t be getting good publicity.”
So argues Fianna Fáil senator Geraldine Feeney, a long-time friend of Brian Cowen and his family.
To be fair, Fianna Fáil members weren’t expecting a saint when Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern. But they were expecting a saviour, of sorts.
Ahern’s tawdry entanglement with the Mahon tribunal had seen the party suffer. Cowen was the new broom – even if he had served a decade in cabinet under Ahern. The incoming party leader and Taoiseach was smart, tough and capable. Even members of the opposition rated him. “I had very high regard for his intellect and his ability as a politician,” says Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. “I mean, to some extent, you can say that he turned around the 2007 general election for Fianna Fáil.”
Was Gilmore surprised, therefore, at just how quickly things turned sour for Cowen? “I was, yeah. I mean, the first [challenge] obviously was Lisbon and the first mistake he made, on the Lisbon campaign, instead of seeking to involve the opposition parties in a constructive way, he had a whack at the opposition parties.”
PICKING THE WRONG FIGHT
AH, yes, Lisbon. Because of Ahern’s long farewell, which lasted a month and took in the trip to Washington, Cowen arrived in office with less than five weeks to the referendum on the treaty. He made it clear that securing a yes vote was his immediate and most urgent priority.
Fight he did – but unfortunately it was with Fine Gael and Labour, after off-the-cuff remarks made on the campaign trail blew up into an unholy row with the parties, both of which supported the treaty.
“It was a point I made before he became leader,” recalls Gilmore. “Everybody knew he could lead Fianna Fáil; the question was could he lead the country? And he’s a very tribal leader of Fianna Fáil, but it’s not the same as providing leadership of the country…
“In the lead-in to Lisbon, he couldn’t resist the temptation to have a kick at the two main opposition parties, and he’s done that repeatedly at times where in the country’s interest, it would be necessary for a Taoiseach to take the initiative and get the involvement of the opposition parties.”
Worse followed when, in a radio interview, Cowen responded to a question by admitting he had not read the treaty from “cover to cover”. He did stress that he knew the document practically inside out, given that he had been involved in its negotiation. But it was a stunning own goal, and proved manna from heaven for the No campaign.
When the treaty crashed to defeat, members of the Yes campaign also drew attention to it, blaming Cowen for the defeat and using his admission as a stick with which to beat him. They’re still doing it today.
“He didn’t read the thing,” says Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny. “I mean, what do people understand here? They understand simplicity. He didn’t read it, Charlie McCreevy didn’t read it... And people said: ‘Well, if that’s the case, why should I read it?’”
THE EARTHQUAKE OF EVIDENCE
LISBON was a shocker. Worse followed, as the scale of the economic downturn suddenly became clearer and Cowen and his cabinet looked, in Eamon Gilmore’s words at the time, like rabbits caught in the headlights.
Had he been unprepared to take over? After all, Ahern had been clinging to office for months, and looked set to continue doing so, only to be undone by the evidence of his former secretary, Gráinne Carruth, at the Mahon tribunal, which contradicted Ahern’s denials about receiving sterling sums.
“When Bertie Ahern left – when Ms Carruth went to the witness stand and said: ‘Yes, there was sterling in that account’, which forced his hand – I think the time was not of Brian Cowen’s choosing,” says Kenny. “Ahern seemed to me like a man who was going to hang on unless an earthquake happened, which it did.”
Feeney, for her part, argues that Cowen was prepared in terms of political experience, having held the health, foreign affairs and finance portfolios prior to becoming Taoiseach. But she concedes that he was perhaps unprepared for Ahern having to go when he did.
“I’d say from a personal point of view, he probably didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did,” she says.
Cowen, of course, had been the leader-in-waiting for quite some time, even before Ahern named him as his obvious successor in a radio interview shortly after the 2007 election. But being the heir apparent isn’t necessarily a good thing, according to government chief whip Pat Carey.
“There’s always a real downside in being the heir apparent. Anybody who has had the benefit, or whatever the word is, of hands being laid on him by their predecessor, it creates extraordinarily high expectations of them...
“Even in normal politics, trying to live up to what people expect would have been very difficult. But inheriting what the Taoiseach has done – I think a poisoned chalice would be a very inadequate description of what he or indeed Gordon Brown or Sarkozy or Obama or any of them inherited.”
THE OPPOSITE OF LUCK
SO does this stretch to Cowen being unlucky? Interestingly, none of the Fianna Fáil people interviewed wants to use that word.
Maybe it’s something to do with the old tale told about Napoleon, who when told of the skill, courage and intelligence of a new general, reputedly asked: “But is he lucky?”
The inverse, for political parties, is almost too awful to contemplate.
For example, having used the word “unfortunate” in relation to the circumstances he inherited, Feeney is quick to clarify that: “I don’t want you to think unlucky in that, you know, he’s jinxed. No, I certainly don’t mean it that way.”
Pat Carey and Fianna Fáil general secretary Sean Dorgan, meanwhile, come up with almost identical answers.
“I don’t think it’s lucky or unlucky,” says Carey. “You could say you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, but at the same time, there’s a huge challenge there [and] I believe he has risen to it.”
“I think it’s been a tough year,” says Dorgan. “I think he has had to give his focus 100% to the affairs of state. But he’s committed to doing it, and he’s committed to getting through it.
“So I don’t think it’s a matter of being lucky or unlucky; I mean, he’s the man in the job, and he’s committed to doing a good job.”
The opposition parties don’t care for the term “unlucky”, either, though in their case, it’s because they feel that would be letting Cowen off too lightly.
Sinn Féin’s leader in the Dáil, Caoimhghín O Caoláin, says Cowen came into office and pursued the same policies as the cabinet of which he was a member had been doing for the previous decade.
“I think you have to take on board that Brian Cowen has been a central player in decision-making at cabinet since 1997,” he says.
“Appraising his role as Taoiseach over the past 12 months, I don’t think you can look at that in isolation from his previous three years as minister for finance or his previous tenure as minister for health… That everything has unravelled over the 12 months since is not just a reflection on Brian Cowen’s failures as Taoiseach, it’s the chickens coming home to roost.”
Gilmore, for his part, acknowledges the global downturn and the effects it has had. “But that doesn’t explain why we are now bottom of the league,” he claims.
There were problems unique to Ireland that should have been tackled by the Government, he argues, such as economy’s over-dependence on the construction sector, the employment it created and the taxes it raised.
Cowen should have known from his time in Finance that the economy was weakening, Gilmore says.
“If you didn’t see the thing coming, there’s something wrong, and you know, there were signs,” he says. “It didn’t all happen the night that the Lehman Brothers bank started to go. It wasn’t a sudden bolt of the blue. They should have seen [the downturn] coming… and had action been taken at an earlier stage, we wouldn’t now be in the deep hole that we are in.”
Enda Kenny has tried – and failed – to get some of the crucial information supplied to Cowen by advisors during his time in finance.
“I asked the Department of Finance for the information given to the Minister for Finance for the last four years on current spending projections and so on under the Freedom of Information Act; they want €6,000 for it,” Kenny says.
“So I have to rephrase my question. But it would be very interesting to see what they were saying to him when he was Minister for Finance, and if [downward] was the trend that was being advised.”
BREAKING RANKS
THE economic collapse brought with it all manner of pressures, not least from within Cowen’s own party. One of the more striking elements of his troubled first year has been the breakdown in Fianna Fáil discipline.
He has talked at various points during the year about “my party” and “my government”, has spoken of the values of political loyalty and clearly expected to receive it.
But when the Government brought forward last year’s budget from December to October, and abolished the over-70s’ automatic right to medical cards, he endured a mini-backbench revolt and saw one of “his” TDs, Joe Behan, resign from the party in protest. Another Fianna Fáil TD, Noel O’Flynn, has felt free to criticise the Government whenever he desired.
When Cowen sacked five junior ministers, one of them, John McGuinness, immediately hit back by expressing his lack of faith in Tánaiste Mary Coughlan’s ability. Now, as the June 5 local elections loom, stories fly around about Fianna Fáil candidates removing the party logo from their election literature. Others have simply abandoned the party and chosen to run as Independents.
But Sean Dorgan, the man spearheading Fianna Fáil’s election effort alongside Cowen, denies there is anything unusual in “a handful” of candidates removing the logo or going independent when a tough election is in store. The same thing happened in 2004 when the Government was again going through a rough patch, he points out.
“Between town council and county council we have over 800 candidates, so we have an enormous number of candidates, and I don’t accept that most candidates are taking the logo off the literature at all. I think there have always been examples where a handful will, for whatever reason,” he says.
And the issue of party discipline breaking down? “Well, I think Brian Cowen has always been open to debate. Our party has always facilitated people with different views. So I wouldn’t view that as being in any way a breakdown in discipline. Fianna Fáil is a broad church… so the notion that every single person doesn’t have their own views on things…”
Pat Carey speaks a little more candidly, admitting: “I suppose we all get impatient with those kind of things. But on the other hand, without being a disciplinarian, [Cowen] has conveyed an understanding of the need for unity. That doesn’t mean that everybody has to agree on every last dot or comma.”
He appreciates the Government isn’t helping the party’s election candidates right now. “Look, we fully recognise that in taking the measures that we have taken, it is not making it easier for candidates to be elected.”
But it’s not as if they have willfully chosen to damage their own candidates, he points out, saying of the extraordinary turbulence of the last 12 months: “There isn’t a single [cabinet] meeting that you go into where there isn’t another kind of a hand grenade of one sort or another that’s landing in your lap.”
A PADDY’S DAY PICK-ME-UP
THE grenades have been endless – the toxic banks, the toxic pork, the toxic reluctance of some TDs to accept pay and pension cuts – but has Cowen had any good moment in his first year?
“No,” says Enda Kenny bluntly.
Anything at all?
“Did Offaly win any match?” he quips.
Kenny seems reluctant to afford Cowen even the merest sliver of credit, not that surprising given how antagonistic relations between the two biggest parties, and their leaders, have become.
Fine Gael might argue Cowen is merely reaping what he sowed, having delivered some withering putdowns of Kenny in the Dáil in the past.
Whatever the case, Eamon Gilmore is more prepared to acknowledge that Cowen did one thing, in particular, very well.
“I think Washington, I think St Patrick’s Day,” he says of the Taoiseach’s meeting with US President Barack Obama in March.
“I acknowledged it in the House; I thought that that was a big diplomatic success. I credited him with it. He succeeded in getting quite an amount of time, and quite an amount of attention. It’s just a pity he didn’t take a few hints from President Obama about how to solve an economic crisis.”
Geraldine Feeney and Pat Carey also point to Washington as the obvious highlight.
“I would regard that week as being the turning point in relation to opinion relating to Ireland,” says the latter.
While there were subsequent blips, such as the recent New York Times column by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in which the “Erin go broke” headline said it all, Carey believes that Cowen convinced key players that week that Ireland remained “open for business”.
“I certainly believe he came home buoyed up and rejuvenated after that… and I think since then, he is – not saying he wasn’t sure-footed before that, but I think he now knows that other people abroad understand what Ireland is trying to do, and there mightn’t be to the same extent having to look over the shoulder all the time at potential negative comment from various opinion formers.”
THE VERDICT OF TIME
BUT even if opinion formers abroad believe Ireland is on the road to recovery [and that’s a big if], most of the opinion formers in this country clearly don’t.
Neither does the public, with opinion polls showing Fianna Fáil at record lows and Cowen’s personal approval ratings on the floor.
So is it already too late for him personally to recover? Is Brian Cowen’s best hope now that history will judge favourably the policies he implemented, even if the public at the next general election doesn’t?
“I would not propose to write him off,” says Caoimhghín O Caoláin. “I would hope that being an intelligent man with an awful lot of experience that he would recognise that opposition voices have indeed been making sensible and sustainable cases for particular actions and initiatives. And you can’t keep appealing for a trans-party approach and then ignore and insist across the floor of the Dáil that ‘I’m going to do it my way anyway, damn the whole lot of you’, which is the attitude he has demonstrated.”
Enda Kenny believes the public has Fianna Fáil “convicted”, and that the party is failing to grasp just how furious people are with events of the last few months.
He refers to recent comments by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who suggested that other European governments would have struggled to impose the harsh cutbacks introduced here, and that there would have been “riots” in France if their public servants had been hit with the pension levy.
“I’ve rarely felt the scale of anger that’s out there,” says Kenny, “and when you see someone like the Minister for Finance say that if it happened in France, there’d be riots – what sort of an ambition is this? Did we get away with it by not having riots?”
Gilmore says the fact is that the Government has been too long in power and is showing fatigue.
“I think where that fatigue is combined with the kind of crisis we now find ourselves in, it’s a recipe for disaster,” he adds.
“I met a businessman [recently], and I don’t think he was a Labour supporter, because he said to me: ‘Well, the two Brians are doing their best.’ And I said: ‘Well, that’s what worries me: I think you’re right, I think they are doing their best.’ It’s the best of people who are at it too long and now can’t adjust their thinking and just don’t have that energy and freshness that the moment requires.”
Geraldine Feeney, not surprisingly, disagrees, and predicts Cowen will see out his term. “I think Brian Cowen will be judged by the actions he is taking, and it will be sooner rather than later, and I mean by that in 2012. Hopefully we’ll be on the road to recovery, if not recovered. We’ll be well into it, and I think the difficult actions that he has had to implement will be seen to have been the right decisions.”
THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
FEW others in Leinster House would be willing to bet on Cowen surviving until 2012. But Pat Carey says the Government may have already come through the worst of it.
“In September, everybody expected [the] complete implosion of everything, and it came very close to that… it’s been rocky, it’s been rollercoaster over the last number of months, but at the same time, there is evidence now that the measures that have been taken have brought about a level of stability,” he says.
“People were saying 10 months ago that we wouldn’t live politically or economically long enough to see this happen. And the job is probably less than half done, but I think that there is a good foundation laid now.”
His point is that measures taken today cannot necessarily be judged tomorrow – it takes longer than that. One interesting story in this regard concerns Cowen’s approach to the issue of top bankers paying for the recklessness.
Late last year, there were demands for heads to roll at the financial institutions covered by the state guarantee scheme, with many opposition politicians and members of the public not understanding why the Government had not demanded more resignations.
But in December, a senior Government adviser told this correspondent privately that Cowen knew the banks’ senior management would have no option but to go in the early months of the new year as they came under pressure from shareholders and others.
Cowen preferred to focus on trying to get the Government policy right in relation to the banks rather than engage in a media circus about personalities who were doomed anyway, the adviser indicated.
It seemed like spin at the time, but the prediction about bankers departing has been accurate.
Can it be extrapolated from this that Cowen’s slow, steady approach to governing may work, and that he knows exactly what he is doing and that it will pay off?
Perhaps, but confidence in him is draining in the interim. And it may not just be among the opposition and the public.
Three Fianna Fáil ministers declined to be interviewed for this article, citing time pressures. It may be indicative of nothing, or it may be indicative of a reluctance to jump to his defence.
The political fight for survival Cowen faces is perhaps best summed up by the man who first appointed him to cabinet in 1992.
Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds refused to assess Cowen’s or the Government’s performance, saying he had never passed public judgment on any of his successors. But he did offer this much: “All I’ll say is, I wish the Government luck. It’s a tough time.”
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