No confidence vote - Taoiseach’s authority is under threat

HEALTH MINISTER Mary Harney will face a Dáil motion of no confidence from Labour tomorrow but make no mistake about it, this is a challenge to Mr Ahern’s authority to continue as Taoiseach.

Though the besieged health minister is the immediate, frontline target, her policies have enjoyed enthusiastic and continued public endorsement from Mr Ahern since he became Taoiseach in June 1997.

This was especially evident in Mr Ahern’s support for Ms Harney’s co-location proposals, plans that will advance the profit-and-loss imperative in our already inequitable health system.

Whether as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment — for more than seven years — or as tánaiste, Ms Harney has always had the fulsome support of Mr Ahern. Apart from his declaration as being one of the two socialists left in the Dáil and her devotion to the principles and potential of a largely unfettered free market, it is difficult to see how they differ.

They were — and declare they remain — close friends, a friendship that was formed in the early years of their political careers. Though Mr Ahern found it possible to support Charles Haughey, Ms Harney laudably did not. Only for that point-of-principle interruption their political relationship might be even closer.

Mr Ahern has already survived a no-confidence motion during the infancy of this Dáil but should tomorrow’s motion be successful — no matter how unlikely that seems — have no doubt about it that Mr Ahern will face another at the earliest opportunity. He may well do so no matter what the outcome.

Even a personality as resilient and as Teflon as Mr Ahern cannot relish that prospect, especially as some of his senior colleagues have expressed relief that his personal rating was not featured in the weekend poll from the Sunday Business Post, which put Fianna Fáil at 32%, a mere point ahead of Fine Gael.

Ms Harney’s party, the Progressive Democrats, stood at 2%, hardly the powerful mandate needed to sustain the authority needed to reform our health system.

Ironically, it seems that political obituary writers can prepare to consider the achievements of the Progressive Democrats and Mr Ahern at round about the same time. In a coincidence of timing, that might have appealed to a mind as Machiavellian as the Boss, it seems that the end of the political career of one of his chosen ones — Mr Ahern — will mark the end of the road for a party essentially established to oppose him.

That moment might arrive all the sooner if Fianna Fáil figures like ministers Ó Cuív and Cullen, along with Deputy O’Rourke, put flesh on the bones of their recent criticisms of the HSE, like Deputy Ned O’Keeffe did yesterday,

And pigs might fly, or just as unlikely, the Greens might recall just a smidgen of the indignation they felt towards Fianna Fáil machinations while they languished in opposition. Once again we will see the permanent objective — the retention of power at all costs — win out over the substance of the issue at hand.

Should Ms Harney suffer a defeat tomorrow, and she ought to, it could start a domino effect that would mean a profound change in our political landscape.

That change will see Mr Ahern and Ms Harney leave politics. After all, if you accept that Ms Harney is responsible for the health service you cannot suggest that Mr Ahern is not responsible for Ms Harney.

You cannot reject one without rejecting the other.