Election results - FF have lost the right to dictate

SO, the medicine has been administered and now all we can do is wait, watch and hope, wondering if thepatient will respond or succumb to the malaise.

It would be nice to retain a sense of detachment, as if we were watching a first-round hurling championship match made irrelevant by the lifeboat RNLB Backdoor moored outside the stadium, but the patient’s wellbeing is central to all of our prospects and ambitions.

Stretching the medical analogy, almost as far as our credibility was stretched over recent years, hopefully we can begin to build a sense of optimism now that the fever has broken and the patient is in a position to respond. And what a response it must be.

In the next few days Taoiseach Brian Cowen goes to the EU summit in Brussels, which is scheduled to finalise the legal guarantees to enable a re-run of the Lisbon Treaty in the Autumn. A second rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, no matter how earnestly felt, would be suicidal. We simply don’t have the luxury of pretending that we can reject it and continue to enjoy the essential support of our European neighbours, support that proved absolutely vital in the last few months.

In the coming weeks An Bord Snip Nua will publish its assessment on how the public service might be reformed. If the report has the substance and sweep required, and there is no reason to imagine that it will not, it will cause ructions amongst those in the firing line. Age-old privileges and authority will be challenged and those once thought untouchable will be taken out of their comfort zone. It is possible too that this report will have an impact on some incomes.

It is certain, however, that the Commission on Taxation report on the tax system will have an impact on incomes. This report is taking shape and will be with us long before the consequences of last Friday have faded. This report will feed into the December budget which, as even the simplest calculations confirm, will have a considerable impact in incomes and probably services too.

These projects would stretch a Government in rude health, but a shaken, battered, drained and profoundly challenged Government might find it all too much; it is all but impossible to expect that they might not.

Of course there are other matters, such as our errant banks, the prospect of 500,000 people in dole queues before Christmas, energy dependence, collapsing pension schemes, great difficulties in agriculture too and many, many more problems that can’t be ignored.

In this context it would be appropriate for Government to give an outline of how it intends to proceed, of how it intends to secure these objectives.

Unless it shows that it has absorbed the lesson of Friday’s humiliation Mr Cowen’s Government cannot expect anything other than a further erosion of its credibility and its ability to govern. Mr Cowen seems determined to forge ahead as if he had a gold-plated mandate, but he has not and must behave accordingly, hence the need for communication rather than autocracy.

These unique circumstances present challenges for Fine Gael and Labour too. They are both a step closer to their holy grail and must now behave as they might should they assume power. They too must say how they would fix our world. If they don’t how can they expect to be given the opportunity?