The elections’ lessons - Vote points to chaotic Government

Over the coming days the primary and urgent focus for the Coalition parties will be on why they were at the wrong end of such a very serious kicking from the electorate.

They will wonder what they can do to avoid an equally catastrophic — for them at least — judgement at the next general election.

For others, especially a charging Sinn Féin, the gathering platoons of multicoloured independents and a partially revived Fianna Fáil, the focus will be on consolidating the weekend’s advances and turning that newfound or recovered popularity into Dáil seats.

If, however, that is the extent of the review, the limit of the ambition and honesty brought to the analysis of what has befallen all of our political establishment and process since Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were unceremoniously driven from office in February 2011, then it is not difficult to believe that a kind of political chaos, a kind of dysfunctional democracy and a utterly failed model of government looms ever closer.

It would be hard not to imagine, or fear really, that the Dáil might become as fragmented, as bizarre, and as unable to govern as the post-war Camera dei Deputati circus in Rome was for so many decades.

The lacuna left by the troika, the sense of rudderlessness and make-it-up-as-you-go-along governance in the absence of a strong supervising authority adds to that sense of disenchantment, even if that feeling is perception rather than reality. The Coalition parties might be tempted to look in the rearview mirror and silently berate an ungrateful electorate for not recognising their economic achievement — and it is considerable — but that would be to miss the point entirely.

Rather they, especially Fine Gael, should focus on how they delivered on their promises on reform, championing openness and transparency in public life. An honest assessment will not be uplifting for the Government parties. What has happened to the radical reform of health provision trumpeted with such certainty just over three years ago? The “ongoing” fudge has lost plausibility and, in the context of a cabinet reshuffle, the health department needs to be re-energised.

The parties, again especially Fine Gael, should compare how the culture of our public life has changed to the one they promised. Even their most robust and unflappable Brahmin figures cannot but acknowledge the chasm between one and the other. They simply have not delivered. Shockingly they have adopted — if not surpassed — the self-serving culture of obscurity and evasion so cynically used by their predecessors.

They might even have an honest appraisal of one of their centrepiece projects — the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements — and rather than look at them from the perspective of public sector unions, consider them from the standpoint of private sector workers — or even new entrants to the public service — and social equity. An honest appraisal would not be reassuring, especially for the party that adopted the Just Society ambitions almost exactly half a century ago.

It would be foolish not to recognise that changes to living standards influenced voters but that must be balanced with the recognition that a great number of people recognise how very dire our situation remains, especially our dependence on borrowing — about €50m every working day.

The fact that about half of those entitled to vote did not is probably the most damming of all indictments of the political establishment. Though these absent voters should participate it is very worrying that half of our population think politics irrelevant to their lives.

This is as much a warning as an dismissal. It also means that some representatives will be elected on the vote of a tiny minority of the population. This may be democracy in action but it certainly is not democratic.

Labour’s very poor showing, even if it was anticipated, brings a new complication to the Coalition’s stability and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s leadership.

Labour may be at a defining moment, caught in a merciless pincer movement between economic realities and the promises of those who pretend we can spend money we don’t have, to try to revive the economy.

Our Government has a choice. It can implement the policies it promised and begin to restore some badly-needed faith in our political process, or it can focus on short-term measures to try to save its hide. How wonderful it would be if they had the courage to make what would be one of the most important political decisions of this century and pursue the great cultural change they promised. It would offer what might be a last chance of an honourable, functioning democracy, greatly enhance society and maybe even save a battered and bruised political establishment from itself.