The Dáil resumes - A defining moment for Government

As the Dáil returns from its two-week Easter break this week, there is a feeling that this administration is entering its defining period.

If it can deliver on various promises, programmes or policies it might, eventually, face an election without deep foreboding. If it cannot, then a far less attractive fate seems probable for the Government and for the country.

Buoyed by some success on bank debt, new personal insolvency rules and restoration of some sort of stability — but not optimism — Enda Kenny’s coalition will, over the next few days, know if it has done enough to get even a grudging vote in favour of Croke Park II.

This is in so many ways a defining issue. The deal is not quite as divisive as Margaret Thatcher was but it’s getting there. It tests the Government’s ability to rule, the unions’ understanding of the depth of the crisis facing us all and their difficult role in resolving it.

If the deal is rejected and the Government is forced to impose across-the-board pay cuts — 7% for 300,000 public servants according to Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin — then a political crisis will ensue because savings of €300m for this year are already factored into the budgetary arithmetic. Holding the line on this would test the resolve of Labour in a way it has not been challenged since the party entered coalition. However, the result of the Meath East by-election might stiffen resolve as it is hard to be optimistic about Labour’s prospects if this Government collapses. The hand wringing of the Labour rump so dissatisfied with their party’s role in trying to return some sort of sanity to our public finances will do little to change that, indeed it might even exacerbate the party’s difficulties.

Despite the constant drain of emigration and the awful prospect of what firmer bank action on mortgages in arrears will actually mean for struggling families, all of the Government’s challenges are not economic.

As the Savita Halappanavar inquest reminds us all very forcibly, the abortion issue has yet to be resolved and there is a summer deadline for legislation. Health Minister James Reilly is expected to produce the heads of a bill to legislate for the X case within weeks and early indications are that the proposals will disappoint everyone. If this transpires then it seems that the issue will be bequeathed to yet another generation of politicians so they can try to square the abortion circle.

There are niggling environmental issues — the unknown impact of Food Harvest 2020 on our countryside and water quality, growing unease about wind farm proposals in the Midlands, proposals to build Europe’s biggest salmon farm near the Aran Islands and our complete lack of realism around water charges — all seem battles between the past and the kind of social and environmental responsibility the future demands.

Society defining issues like school patronage and the future of the Seanad are all on the short-term agenda too, but it does seem that all of these issues pale when compared to the urgency of bringing our expenditure much closer to our income. This week’s union votes will indicate how one strand of that project will be achieved but no matter how the votes go, it must be achieved.