Fine Gael at war - FF happy to let FG take limelight

TODAY the focus of Irish politicians should have been firmly fixed on Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his response to Fine Gael’s motion of no confidence in him.

The Dáil motion should have been the only game in town but Fine Gael, resurrecting their terminal habit of throwing lifelines to Fianna Fáil when they are drowning in a quagmire of their own making, have conjured an alternative attraction.

They seem to be preparing to tear themselves apart, as they have done so many times before, just as the coals on the barbecue they have been so long stoking for Mr Cowen are ready to start cooking.

Today, armed with last week’s bank reports, ought to have been an opportunity for the members of the Dáil – the ones who ask for our votes so they can be involved in days like this – to grill him over his stewardship of national finances; his role in creating and enacting policies that led to economic implosion; the pathetic and ineffective regulation he presided over as finance minister and the inability of the Central Bank, again on his watch, to either assess or control privateers operating as bankers.

There will be few enough set pieces with the potential to undermine a weakened, discredited and jumpy Government, especially when so many backbenchers are wondering if they are in the twilight of their political careers. It seems that this one, even before an allegation has been made, has been neutered.

It might even have been an occasion to insist that the elements of the next round of the banking inquiry that the Government seem so keen to have heard in private be heard in public. An occasion to insist that Government deliver on the great promise of transparency in public affairs.

Mr Cowen is, if not cornered, just staying barely half a field ahead of the hounds. His immediate future is in the hands of a spectacularly diverse group of people. Mr Cowen’s moment of great need is, naturally, reflected in the leverage this peculiar and ultimately unaligned coterie can bring to bear on him.

Today might be one of those occasions when Mr Cowen allies his undoubted abilities to one of those far too infrequent moments of passion when he looks and sounds like a real leader.

But he may not even have to do that to deflect a divided Fine Gael. Overcome by a most unfortunate fit of nerves, and with the kind of appalling timing that has ruined many well-laid plans, the party is imploding.

The kind of unity needed to win a general election now requires either Enda Kenny to concede party leadership or for his challenger Richard Bruton to stand down. Neither scenario now seems possible, especially after Mr Kenny dismissed Mr Bruton as deputy party leader late yesterday afternoon. So, the unity of purpose built up over almost a decade will be squandered. The reality is that the leadership of Mr Cowen should be under scrutiny today, not Mr Kenny’s, that could have waited for another day.

Listen closely, the purring you hear, just under the roar of the vuvuzela, are the Fianna Fáil strategists who, on their best day, could not have planned it better themselves.