The long goodbye: PDs finally call it a day

Political Correspondent Paul O’Brien traces the history of the PDs.

THE Progressive Democrats were founded in December 1985 by Des O’Malley and Mary Harney, both of whom had left Fianna Fáil after clashing with its then leader, Charles Haughey.

Mr O’Malley had been a long-time opponent of Mr Haughey, voting for George Colley in the 1979 FF leadership contest. Mr Haughey defeated Mr Colley, but Mr O’Malley wasn’t finished, being involved in several unsuccessful heaves against the party leader.

It took until 1985 for matters to come to a head.

In February of that year, the Fine Gael-Labour government proposed a bill to liberalise the sale of contraceptives. Mr Haughey had ordered his TDs to vote against the bill, but Mr O’Malley, having wrestled with his conscience, decided he would support the legislation.

“The politics would be to be one of the lads, the safest way in Ireland,” Mr O’Malley told the Dáil. “But I do not believe that the interests of this state, or our constitution and of this republic, would be served by putting politics before conscience in regard to this. There is a choice of a kind that can only be answered by saying that I stand by the republic and, accordingly, I will not oppose this bill.”

It was the end of Mr O’Malley’s time in FF, with Mr Haughey immediately moving to have him expelled. A few months later, Mr O’Malley formed the PDs with Ms Harney, who had fallen foul of Mr Haughey over another issue, the Anglo-Irish agreement, which she supported against the FF leader’s wishes.

Mr O’Malley and Ms Harney brought with them to the PDs the prominent FF TDs Bobby Molloy and Pearse Wyse, who were also deeply unhappy with Mr Haughey’s leadership, as well as several breakaways from other parties.

Despite this promising start, they were understandably nervous about how the party would fare, but for the first couple of years at least, it was only good news: the PDs grabbed the public’s imagination, and in the 1987 general election, won 14 seats, a remarkable debut performance.

But the sophomore effort proved more difficult. Mr Haughey’s ill-fated decision to call a general election in 1989 backfired on Fianna Fáil, but also wounded the PDs. The party lost eight of its 14 seats, and for the first time, the obituaries began to be written. They would be continually revised over the years, as the PDs courted with disaster but ultimately escaped each time.

The path to survival in 1989 was one few could have foreseen. Mr Haughey, having lost four seats, had a simple choice: become the first FF leader to enter coalition or go into opposition. Unsurprisingly, he chose the former, but the decision to reach out to the PDs stunned political observers. If that left them reeling, however, the PDs’ decision to accept knocked them to the floor. Mr O’Malley did a deal with his enemy, and the PDs suddenly found themselves in power.

That first coalition between the two parties would not last a full term, however, ending in acrimony within three years.

It’s often said that it is the small things that trip up governments. Certainly, there seemed little danger in former justice minister Sean Doherty going on a television programme in January 1992 to have a chat about politics. But the chat turned controversial when Mr Doherty recalled the phone-tapping controversy of a decade previously.

In 1982, Mr Doherty, as justice minister in Mr Haughey’s cabinet, had ordered the tapping of two journalists’ phones — and now, a decade on, he revealed that Mr Haughey had known about the taps all along.

Mr Haughey denied it, but there was no escaping on this occasion. The PDs were suitably horrified, and in no time at all, Mr Haughey was bidding farewell to office, resigning on February 11, 1992, and being succeeded by Albert Reynolds.

The latter, of course, had famously declared in the early days of the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition that it was merely a “temporary little arrangement”, and that was certainly how the Reynolds-O’Malley partnership proved.

Later that same year, Mr O’Malley, when giving evidence to the Beef tribunal, criticised Mr Reynolds for extending an export credit insurance scheme while industry minister in a previous government. Mr Reynolds fired back in his own tribunal evidence, accusing Mr O’Malley of being “reckless, irresponsible and dishonest”.

It was the last word that caused the ructions, Mr O’Malley believing he had been accused of committing perjury before a state tribunal.

Unsurprisingly, that was the end of the coalition government, and a general election was called.

Mr Reynolds lost seats, but would rescue his leadership by going into coalition with Labour. Although they ended up out of power, the PDs prospered in that election, the party increasing its seat tally from six to 10.

Two years later, Mr Reynolds’ arrangement with Labour also proved a temporary arrangement, and the coalition fell.

Fine Gael and Labour held talks with the PDs about the possibility of forming a new government, but nothing came of them.

Instead, FG and Labour reached out to Democratic Left to make up the numbers.

It was 1997 when the next election took place.

But disaster befell the PDs when it was left with just four seats, and once more the obituaries were taken out and updated. Just like in 1989, however, a surprising rescue was at hand. FF leader Bertie Ahern realised he could form a minority coalition with the PDs that could survive with the support of a handful of Independent TDs. The deal was quickly done, with Ms Harney being appointed Tánaiste and leading her party proudly back into government.

Unlike the previous coalition with FF, this administration was set to last its full term, aided by the booming economy and the stable industrial relations climate.

Yet despite the largesse of that government in those years, and the boom that it presided over, the PDs’ struggle to be liked continued, and there were widespread predictions ahead of the 2002 general election that the party would finally be wiped out.

Instead, it confounded the critics, doubling its Dáil tally to eight seats, and returning to government with Mr Ahern and FF.

Again, the government served its full term, albeit the PDs saw a change of leader within that time, Michael McDowell succeeding Ms Harney in 2006. Mr McDowell would subsequently take the blame for what happened next: the bloodbath in the 2007 general election when the PDs lost six of its eight seats. His prevarication over the payments to Mr Ahern was perceived as a big factor in the disastrous election performance.

Mr McDowell had twice been on the verge of walking out of government because he felt Mr Ahern had not disclosed everything about his finances, which had become the subject of investigation by the Mahon Tribunal. But on both occasions, Mr McDowell stayed put.

It wasn’t just this issue that hurt the PDs, however. Several of their TDs were weak performers, and their seats had become obvious targets for the bigger parties. FF, meanwhile, had appropriated several of the party’s key policies, meaning the PDs were no longer able to carve out their own distinctive message. These and other factors combined to cripple the party at the election.

Despite the outcome, however, the party limped on, with Ms Harney resuming the leadership on a temporary basis.

In April of this year, she handed the reins to Senator Ciaran Cannon, but the fact that he was a virtual unknown in national politics only underlined the problems the party faced. He gave himself 14 months to rescue the party.

In the end, however, he didn’t even last that long, admitting together with Ms Harney in September that the party had no viable future. This weekend, the party’s members agreed, and the PDs are no more.