Crowded stage set for pre-election spring party conference season

IN BRITAIN every autumn, they have a party conference season. In late September and early October, just before parliament resumes, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party in turn take off to Blackpool or Bournemouth or some other seaside town for an annual jamboree of political speech-giving and socialising.

In Ireland, party conferences are usually more spread out across the political calendar. However, things are different this spring and we are going to have our very own political party conference season. It's a case of one down and five to go as the parties seek to squeeze their national events into the window of prime-time TV opportunity between now and the end of April. Brace yourself for what could be a pre-election overload of political coverage.

Sinn Féin staged the season's opener. Somewhat ironically, the Royal Dublin Society was the venue for their jamboree last weekend. As usual, it was a tightly-controlled event. Showcasing their local and European election candidates was a priority. Particular care was taken to ensure the right people were in the camera shots when Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were around. Adams' presidential address on Saturday contained little it was long on broad aspirations and heavy on sound bites. Linguistically at least, Sinn Féin has now moved a step further in the peace process apparently, we are now in the "process of change" phase.

Next weekend, the Fianna Fáil fixture will be played out at Citywest, on the outskirts of Dublin. Again, the local and European elections will be the main theme. The Árd Fheis has operated as a deadline of sorts and so Fianna Fáil appears to be ahead of the other parties in its preparations for the June polls. It has now selected its candidates in all four constituencies. The final line-up includes at least one candidate who national strategists would prefer was not on the ticket. But then national strategists, no more that political analysts, are not always right.

The grassroots revolt which saw Sean O'Neachtain defeat Frank Fahey for the second place on the party's ticket in the North West constituency (formerly known as Connacht-Ulster) was a timely reminder that the membership won't be taken for granted. The Fahey/O'Neachtain confrontation may have lacked the glamour and nastiness of the Orla Guerin versus Bernie Malone battle in 1994 but it has dramatically raised Sean O'Neachtain's profile, which can only help his electoral chances in June.

In the Dublin and South (formerly Munster) constituencies, Fianna Fáil has moved from the candidate selection phase to the constituency divide phase. This is a tense stage when party strategists try to get candidates to agree a divide of the constituencies in order to manage the party vote and maximise seats. It always gives rise to flare-ups. Candidates each jealously guard their patch and try to maximise the publicity they can get from the victimhood of being "picked on" by party headquarters. Even secure vote-getters like Brian Crowley play this one up.

Fianna Fáil is also putting the finishing touches to its local election candidate line-up throughout the country. It's a delicate process which involves the final arm-twisting of the reluctant to get them to stand and the careful soothing of the defeated so they will stay within the tent and work with the selected ones.

The Greens are next up on the conference circuit, with their national convention in Salthill in Galway the weekend before St Patrick's Day. They are very excited by the historic nature of the occasion because it will be the first time RTÉ will give the event the full treatment, including live coverage of Trevor Sargent's leader's address.

Again, this will be the launch pad for the Green's local and European campaign. Their objective will be to hold on to the two European parliament seats they have had for the last decade a task not made easier by the fact that one of the sitting MEPs, Nuala Ahern, is not re-contesting. In the local elections, the party can expect to make gains on the back of its success in the 2002 Dáil election especially in South Dublin.

NEXT in the line of conferences will be the Progressive Democrats. They are also making minor history with their national conference this year they are going to Kerry for the first time. Killarney is the venue for their event on the last weekend in March. By then we should know whether Liz O'Donnell will run for the party in Dublin in the European elections. She is a likely seat winner if she does. In fact, she must be the favourite to win the Fine Gael seat. However, there doesn't as yet seem to be any news on Progressive Democrat candidates in any of the other three European constituencies. Maybe all will be revealed in Killarney.

One thing is clear, however, from a quick look at the local papers: the Progressive Democrats are recruiting some interesting local election candidates, even in parts of the country where they have no real organisational form or electoral history. It's a case of a community activist here and a GAA county board chairman there.

Labour will hold a one-day conference in the RDS on April 17. The party's European election candidates are now in place and they have five candidates in all. They have a real prospect of holding their seat in Dublin and picking up a seat in Leinster.

For the local elections, it appears that new one-member-one-vote rules have opened up the party's candidate selection conventions for the local elections. This additional creative tension has shaken up some Labour constituency organisations especially those which were essentially one-man or woman organisations built around the sitting or former TD. It appears to have delivered dividends in a line-up of fresher candidates.

Fine Gael will complete the sequence when they go to Citywest for their Ard Fhéis on the last weekend in April. They have a couple of conventions to go before they will be ready for the June election.

For the European contest, Jim Higgins and Madeleine Taylor Quinn will be the party's candidates in the North and West constituency while last weekend the Cork South Central TD Simon Coveney was acclaimed as the party's sole standard-bearer for Europe in Munster.

Interestingly, a dash of celebrity colour has been added to Fine Gael's selection convention for the Leinster constituency with the decision of the agricultural journalist Máiread McGuinness to enter the fray. However, things are relatively quiet on the Dublin front where the party faces a real prospect of losing Mary Banotti's seat.

While each party will be hoping that their weekend will give them some competitive edge for the June contest, one can't help thinking that, on balance, the series of conferences is more likely to result in each of them canceling each other out.