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.

Nevertheless, speaking on RTÉ radio at lunchtime yesterday, he acknowledged that Government plans to reduce the public sector pay and pensions bill by €300m this year and by €1bn within two years had to be realised if our public finances were to return to some sort of sustainable equilibrium.

It may be possible in a parallel universe to support those positions at the same time, but in the real world that seems an unattainable luxury. Continuing with his something-for-everyone-in-the-audience economic analysis, he suggested that the new conditions secured by the Government on the promissory note has been “a game changer” and that “this means over €1bn extra per year is available”.

This might make sense if we were not still borrowing around €12bn a year — more or less €50m every working day, €1m every half an hour — to run the State and provide all of the services we have come to depend on.

In that context, the €1bn is hardly “available” and the really sad thing is that Mr Martin and his senior colleagues know this well, but odiously persist in using the opportunity to undermine their successors.

As he presides over such a reduced parliamentary party, Mr Martin’s difficulties are largely theoretical and long-term, but the Government seems to be gathering a momentum that may confound all but the most perceptive crystal ball gazers.

The two immediate issues are abortion and public sector pay. Government parties are divided and there may even be a significant revolt brewing in Fine Gael over abortion. If Labour deputies are asked to vote on legislation to cut public sector pay, then they may have a revolt of their own. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but if either of these scenarios is made real, then the stability essential to recovery will be jeopardised.

It is easy — and right — to criticise the Government over failed policies, a series of credibility-destroying U-turns, inappropriate interventions and behaviour, and a range of broken promises, but the next election will offer the opportunity that matters to pass judgment on that. In the meantime, we have an economic crisis fathered by Fianna Fáil to resolve and a deeply divisive social issue dodged for two decades by Mr Martin and his pensioned-off colleagues to confront. It is very difficult to reconcile this legacy with a resurgent Fianna Fáil, especially as that recovery is partially based on the opportunities to criticise offered by a Government struggling with the unprecedented enormity of Fianna Fáil’s catastrophic legacy. Lest we forget indeed.