Successor to Gilmore will face an unprecedented challenge

AS someone who has admired Eamon Gilmore on a personal basis, and who regards him as a deeply honourable and committed politician, I believe he did the right thing yesterday afternoon.

He took responsibility, and he created some space for the rebuilding of his party that is vitally necessary.

Despite the devastation of the last few days, he will be remembered as a hugely successful leader of the Labour Party, who brought the party to its greatest ever success in its more than a century of history. He also played a key role in Ireland’s economic recovery, and in the recovery of our country’s international reputation.

The next leader, whoever he or she may be, will face an unprecedented challenge. The key and only objective for the party between now and the General Election must be to reconnect with its own voters, people who placed their trust in Labour for generations but are disillusioned now. There has to be an entirely new sense of purpose — an end to austerity without a human face — and a determination to ensure that the benefits of new economic growth enable an agenda of greater equality to be strongly asserted.

All this has to happen in a political landscape that has changed utterly.

After the 2011 General Election, more than a few people predicted the end of Fianna Fáil. There was no coming back from the humiliation they had suffered, only three short years ago. It was over, beyond hope of redemption.

Well, they’re back.

After that election most people too predicted that Sinn Féin had peaked. There was a glass ceiling, everyone said. Despite the professionalism and discipline, there were too many barriers of history and culture in the way of a real breakthrough.

But they’ve made another breakthrough.

Another prediction made after the last election was that independents would add a bit of colour to the new Dáil. But everyone knew that they couldn’t possibly grow. The need of the country for strong and stable government would ensure that their numbers would be kept small, and that they wouldn’t interfere with the effective running of the country. Now, who would argue with the proposition that they may be king-makers after the next election?

But here’s the thing. Fianna Fáil have made an amazing recovery, that’s for sure. But (and I’m trying to be objective here) you can’t ascribe it to a fantastic or coherent performance in opposition. To this day, I suspect most voters would have difficulty in naming more than a couple of the Fianna Fáil front bench.

Sinn Féin have made huge gains because (in part) of their discipline and the effectiveness of several of their leading spokespeople. But they’ve made those gains despite a serious cloud hanging over the head of their party leader. In the course of the election at least one poll stated that a significant majority of people don’t believe Gerry Adams’ assertions about his past.

And no-one, I think, can seriously argue that the independents we elected in 2001 were the pick of the bunch. Some — notably Clare Daly — have performed remarkably well, especially in relation to the whistle-blower controversy. Some have made clowns of themselves.

In other words, it really is hard to establish that the significant, and possibly transformative, performances of every opposition grouping in last week’s elections is as a result of the people’s appreciation of how brilliantly they have all been performing.

No. When the history of all this is written, it may well come to be recognised that the rehabilitation of Fianna Fáil is the single greatest failure of a government that has entirely squandered the good will it was given when it was elected three years ago.

Three months ago, people in both parties in government were preparing for very tough local elections. A lot of the decisions they had to make were unpopular, and they knew that. The electorate was feeling squeezed and resentful and angry. Seats were bound to be lost.

But at least back then, what had been done was defensible. It had been tough, even harsh, but it had been necessary. And there were tangible outcomes. The people of Ireland had paid a heavy price for the failed policies of the past, but at least it was possible to point to the fact that the country had clearly and visibly turned a corner.

Of course, the single-mindedness with which the Government pursued one objective, at whatever cost, was never going to please everyone. People like me might argue that the wrong people were paying too high a price for “exiting the bailout” or “restoring our national sovereignty”. But at least there was an objective.

And then it was replaced with chaos. The Government switched from what you might call necessary austerity to gratuitous austerity in a flash. Special needs assistants, water taxes, medical cards, homelessness. All inflicted by a government out of touch with its own objectives.

Nessa Childers (MEP still!) was effectively hounded out of Labour because she opposed the appointment of Kevin Cardiff to a lucrative job in Europe. When Roisin Shortall opposed what she saw as insider politics by the minister for health, her party colleagues supported the minister and left her isolated. The new politics promised by Labour in government looked very like the old politics.

It came to a head with Shattergate. At a moment when somebody — anybody — needed to tell Alan Shatter to cop himself on, Labour ministers all supported him while he dug the hole deeper and deeper.

People in government often complain about “events” — things happening out of the blue, over which they have no control. The art of politics, it’s sometimes said, is about managing events. But these weren’t events — they were all things done by government to itself. Nobody seemed to have the political wit to shout stop.

There’s a reason for that. When a government has a set of clear objectives, it knows what to do. This government woke up one morning, a few months ago, and decided it had accomplished its main objective. It had exited the bailout. And ever since then it has fallen back on management skills that have been found seriously wanting. In the process it has single-handedly made space for an opposition thathad been largely ineffective.

The big mistake was this. Exiting the bailout should never have been seen as the major objective, but rather as a means to an end. From day one, the Government should have been asking — itself and us — when we get our sovereignty back, how are we going to use it in the interests of all the people. If they’d had a clear purpose, they wouldn’t have lost their way as badly as they have.

It may not be too late. But this government — with a focused, equality-driven Labour Party at its heart, led by someone determined not to lose touch with what matters — has to find a new purpose and vision. If it doesn’t, it will definitely be too late.

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