Opposition gains from FF Pyrrhic victory

THE devastation was of Fianna Fáil’s making and the bank bailout means the blood of the Celtic Tiger will forever stain its hands.

This was the drumbeat the Opposition marched to as they left the battlefield and conceded defeat after a two-year war to decide how the economy should be rescued.

And as they regroup their assertion that the banking bill was wracked up on Fianna Fáil’s excesses will clearly be the rallying-cry ahead of the next General Election.

That has to be their focus now, because the Government majority survived long enough to slug out a win on the banks.

Many of the Opposition’s strategists will gladly have handed this Pyrrhic victory to the party which has dominated the political landscape since Independence. At last, evidence the party was not the responsible steward its supporters believed it to be.

But, although fewer in number, there are idealists who would have preferred to have taken control before now and brought the country in another direction.

From today there can be no alternative. Future governments will be lumped with NAMA, the bailed out banks and the lingering billion euro bills.

“We have crossed the Rubicon,” said Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Richard Bruton. “There can be no turning back from this decision.”

Mr Bruton knew once loans arrived into NAMA’s office in the Treasury Building and taxpayers’ cash was shuffled into the banks its Bad Bank strategy was dead. Efforts to reverse the process failed.

And, if poll figures are borne out with Fine Gael winning the next General Election, his party will have to reluctantly manage the legacy of this bailout.

His leader, Enda Kenny, could not forcean election in time to dramatically change the direction of the remedy.

Since the fateful guarantee in September 2008 the Government made its case. Support was garnered from reluctant European powers. It kept rebellious backbenchers in line. And it appeased the windy foot-soldiers of its Green Party allies with the sops of fresh titles and feel-good laws.

However, the price was greater than anything it predicted in 2008 when it told taxpayers they would not have to pay for its elaborate actions.

The Labour Party’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said the economic horror brought about by the banking rescue was akin to the slaughter in Flanders during World War I.

She said FF’s leadership was like donkeys leading loyal taxpayers to their death.

“The Fianna Fáil donkeys are ordering the lions of the Irish taxpayers over the top and into withering fire.”

She said the debate had reached end game and it was time for Taoiseach Brain Cowen to tell citizens to “forget the fairy story, there is no bright future”. The recovery would be slow and painful, she said.

However, Ms Burton was already preparing for the future. She laid claim to the political capital of knowing the Government has come very close to adopting the strategy the Labour Party proposed in the early stages.

AIB will be all-but nationalised. The EBS and the Irish Nationwide Building Society will be nationalised.

And the €40bn required by Anglo makes it a far more expensive investment in stability than was envisaged.

She said FF and the Green Party had delayed in arriving at what the Labour Party suggested and this had added greatly to the costs of nationalisation.

And her party’s plan would have avoided the mine-field NAMA has to negotiate when valuing each loan.

Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan said the day would “go down in history” and the current Government would be strapped to its memory.

In their retreat the Opposition’s priority was to point out the Soldiers of Destiny had been in power while the mess was created.

FF’s ties to bankers and developers influenced policy. And the fresh €32bn commitment to support the banks was the result of a hyped-up property boom which was fuelled by misguided tax polices.

Finance Minister Brain Lenihan would not accept blame for the crisis. He said it was the bankers who had run amok and they was merely cleaning up. He was laying out its mantra for the years ahead that will tell voters its decisive and brutal actions saved the country from the speculators and financial recklessness.

“In too many cases there were also shoddy banking practices. The banks played fast and loose with the economic interests of this country,” he said.

Fianna Fáil and the Green Party will today survey the spoils of a political victory: toxic assets in NAMA, billions of state money on the balance sheets of the banks and the ownership of two limping building societies.

The Opposition walk away with nothing but the knowledge they will be far healthier and with a inflated arsenal when the campaign for the 31st Dáil kicks off.