Fianna Fáil ard fheis - Recovery is at odds with toxic legacy

Fianna Fáil may have embraced new marketing ideas and purged some grandees whose policies and neglect cost the country its economic independence, but as the weekend ard fheis proved, sugar-coated cynicism remains the stock in trade for the party that has always regarded itself as the party of government — and was prepared to promise more or less anything to anyone that would tighten their grip on power.

That they succeeded more often that not says as much about us as it does about them. That they seem to be resurgent — though it would be best to wait for a meaningful election before the patient’s prospects are upgraded significantly — suggests that an epidemic of amnesia almost biblical in scale has gripped the country.

Over the weekend, Micheál Martin announced, as blithely as an innocent child, that Fianna Fáil will no longer support the type of “austerity” measures that have defined budgetary policy over the past five years.