It will either be gain or pain for potential coalition partners

Today, most of the Green deputies probably wish to form a coalition with Fianna Fáil now — but they will need the support of a two-thirds majority of the party membership in conference.

That adds a major imponderable

THERE seems to be little doubt Fianna Fáil will lead the next government as it is unrealistic that the other parties could form a viable coalition.

Fianna Fáil, though, could do it with the support of independents. It could even do what Seán Lemass did in 1961, when the party was five seats short.

Essentially, Lemass told the independents to support his nomination or face another general election.

“I have not asked any deputy in this House, outside the members of my own party, to support the motion, either by their vote or by their abstention,” Lemass told the Dáil. “If I should be elected Taoiseach, it would be my intention to implement the programme of my party in all respects.”

The last thing independents wanted was another election, so Lemass was elected without making any deals. In fact, Fianna Fáil formed eight different minority governments.

In a number of respects, the recent election result is similar to 1989. Fianna Fáil lost four seats then, but the biggest losers were the Progressive Democrats, which lost eight of its 14 seats.

As the independent Seán Tracy could be reappointed speaker, the six seats won by the PDs just happened to be the number Haughey needed to form a government. Even though the PDs had essentially been formed to keep Haughey out of power, Mary Harney sought to salvage something from the election disaster.

“However we may dislike certain people or parties,” she said, “we have to play our part in giving this country a government for the foreseeable future.”

The PDs pledged to vote for the Fine Gael leader when the Dáil met to select a Taoiseach on June 28, 1989. As expected, Haughey’s nomination for Taoiseach was defeated by 86 votes to 78, but Alan Dukes and Dick Spring were defeated even more decisively.

The Dáil adjourned until July 3 to give Haughey a further chance to form a government. He said it would not be in “the best interests of the country to precipitate another general election” so soon, if it could be avoided. He and his cabinet colleagues continued in office on a caretaker basis.

The PDs made it clear they were only interested in a coalition arrangement, but Fianna Fáil had a tradition of not going into alliances. The party voted unanimously against coalition and, on July 2, Haughey said he was opposed to coalition. He got a further Dáil adjournment until July 6.

When the cabinet met the next day, it was evenly split on the issue of coalition, but Pádraig Flynn stunned his colleagues with a vicious attack on Haughey, whose lust for power, he said, had put them in the invidious position.

When Haughey met the PDs shortly afterwards, he agreed to form a coalition, subject to an agreement on a joint programme for government.

On being asked about the opposition to coalition within Fianna Fáil, Haughey was dismissive. “I haven’t told them yet,” he replied.

The Dáil reconvened on July 6 and adjourned for another six days. Some deputies were becoming uneasy about the delay.

Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern negotiated policy matters relating to the programme for government on behalf of Fianna Fáil with Bobby Molloy and Pat Cox of the Progressive Democrats. The actual make-up of the government was left to the two leaders.

Fianna Fáil initially insisted the PDs were proportionally entitled to only one seat in the cabinet, but O’Malley insisted on two. The parliamentary party allowed Haughey the freedom to negotiate a coalition, but not before Máire Geoghegan-Quinn made some bitter comments.

“Don’t ask me to accept that what is being done is in the national interest,” she said. It was simply being done to satisfy the leader’s desire for power.

Most of the backbenchers, however, were so anxious to avoid another election that they favoured coalition.

“They’re more enlightened than some of my cabinet,” Haughey remarked caustically.

On the eve of the next Dáil sitting, Haughey gave in to O’Malley’s demand for seats for himself and Bobby Molloy in the cabinet, and that Mary Harney was to be appointed a minister of State.

In addition, the Progressive Democrats were promised three seats in the Senate out of the 11 to be appointed by the Taoiseach.

“Never in the history of Irish politics,” one disgruntled Fianna Fáiler declared, “has so much been given by so many to so few.”

The next general election in 1992 led to an even more surprising government.

Dick Spring, the leader of the Labour Party, proclaimed during the election campaign that he could see no way that anyone could go into government with Fianna Fáil, unless it underwent a fundamental change.

Fianna Fáil went on to have one of its worst ever general election performances. Fine Gael should have been in a position of incredible strength, but it was the biggest loser of all.

Because Fianna Fáil had clearly lost, however, Fine Gael began acting as if it had won the election.

Even with the support of Labour, which won a record 33 seats, Fine Gael would not have had enough seats to form a government, but it insisted Labour could not bring Democratic Left into coalition. When Spring consulted Democratic Left, Fine Gael and the PDs savaged him.

On the day the new Dáil convened, Des O’Malley, the PD leader, launched a blistering attack on Spring for daring to hold discussions with Democratic Left.

“We made clear,” O’Malley said, “that a three-party government, embracing ourselves, Labour and Fine Gael, could only emerge.”

With Fine Gael and the PDs laying down conditions for Labour’s participation in government, Spring went off and formed a government with Fianna Fáil instead, much to the indignation of the other two parties, and the media pundits who had got the whole thing dreadfully wrong.

Many of those pundits then stated that Spring never recovered from going into government with Fianna Fáil — but the reality was different.

In the next IMS poll, Labour’s popularity increased by 7% on its general election showing, which was already at an all-time high. On the other hand, Fine Gael dropped 5%. Dick Spring’s popularity was up by 9%.

Labour later came to rue that political marriage — but that was because of subsequent events.

Most of the Green deputies might wish to enter coalition with Fianna Fáil but they need support of a two-thirds majority of the party membership in conference. That adds a major imponderable.

In terms of influence however, they are unlikely to be in a better position to extract more policy concessions from a coalition of other parties than from Fianna Fáil.