I want to vote for a government that will honestly begin to address what’s wrong

I still believe that the present government, despite making some choices I fundamentally disagree with, did a good job in the last five years, writes Fergus Finlay.

I don’t often disagree with Fintan O’Toole. But he wrote a piece in the Irish Times during the week that I thought was profoundly simplistic — to the extent that it was an insult to the electorate.

It was a plea for more democracy — something with which I heartily agree — but it started this way:

“The most obvious thing about this election is that, on February 26, the Irish people will go to the polls to choose a government. And it is simply not true. We don’t get to elect our government. We elect a parliament which in turn votes a government into office. Once we’ve cast our ballots we have absolutely no control over this process.

“So when we’re told over and over that we must think very carefully about which government we choose, it’s a big lie. If that’s what you think you’ll be doing on February 26, you are suffering from delusions of grandeur.”

Does Fintan really think we don’t know that? Does he really believe we’re so thick that we don’t realise the possibilities of compromise after the election? Does he really believe that we don’t know that we’re imposing a pretty big responsibility on the 157 TDs we elect, and one we re-appoint — to put a government in place that will protect the future for our families?

Does he really believe that this isn’t the norm in every western democracy since the concept of parliamentary democracy was invented?

Sure, there have been surprising, even startling, outcomes to the process in the past. I’ve been there, and I know there were times when party leaders had to persuade their parties to make unpalatable choices. It can happen, after an election, that parties have to choose between what they want to do and what they have to do.

There’s a hackneyed and much-ridiculed phrase that comes into play at moments like this — and Fintan, who knows better, trots it out again as part of the “big lie” — the national interest.

The thing is, the national interest can sometimes force people into doing what they don’t want to do.

But Fintan O’Toole doesn’t really believe that Des O’Malley in 1989 or Dick Spring in 1992 really secretly wanted to go into government with the Fianna Fáil leaders of the time. It was a shocking outcome of those elections — especially to many of the people directly involved — but it was by no means undemocratic.

The other thing Fintan doesn’t mention is the pressures that will be brought to bear on political parties after the election.

The media will be full of editorials telling the parties where their duty lies. Especially if the election doesn’t produce a clear-cut result, parties and their leaders will be put under the most intense pressure to swallow their preferences and give the country a government. In the national interest. I never enjoyed that pressure myself in the past, but it’s entirely democratic too.

And boy, as we stand, are we looking at an indecisive result.

The main reason for that is that Fine Gael has completely misread the mood of the electorate. This is the party that can claim, with considerable justification, to have been part of the government that pulled us back from the brink.

The collapse of our economy was caused in considerable part by a decade of policies orchestrated and designed by Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy. When I have it, I spend it. Party on. Remember those FF mantras?

So why are Fine Gael setting out to do a poor impersonation of Ahern and McCreevy in this election? Every day, it seems, they unveil another promise — over the weekend I even read Simon Coveney promising to increase the naval fleet if they’re returned to office.

Simon Coveney

None of us believe that the time has come to party again. We might want to, but we know in our heart of hearts that the recovery we’re seeing is both fragile and localised. What we were expecting from Fine Gael was care, a strong message that said we needed to manage the recovery prudently. They’re the party of prudence, after all.

Even if they believe themselves that there is a real prospect of a strong and vibrant economy just around the corner, with balanced budgets and a significant chance to make lasting changes for the better, it’s out of character for them to be offering to spend it all before it has really bedded in. That’s why they’re going down in the polls. All they have managed to do so far in this campaign is make their own supporters wonder if they can really be trusted. The last thing you expect, if you’re a Fine Gael voter, is for your party to throw caution to the wind. In this election, and this is really clear from the polls, the electorate is roughly divided in half, between those who are angry and those who are anxious.

Look at the angry half. There are voters who are deeply angry with Fianna Fáil, and also with Labour. In Labour’s case, that anger is also being whipped up by all of the forces of the hard left, who regard Ireland’s oldest political party as both a target and the real enemy. I’ve never known a time when the Labour party was so surrounded on all sides by people determined to try to destroy it.

When history is written, I believe, Labour will be seen to have played a remarkable role in Ireland’s recovery. But that cuts no ice with those on the left who, alongside the most populist set of policies I’ve ever seen, are motivated by something entirely visceral when it comes to the party that has fought to represent working people in Ireland for more than a century.

In any event, there was never any prospect that this government could appeal to the angry section of the electorate. Its prime audience was always the anxious section of the people.

We may be more than half — we may even be in a slight majority. We’re the people who don’t want to see the recovery blown. Of course we’d enjoy a tax break, but we’ll pocket it with a guilty conscience.

Because we all know that if there are some resources available that weren’t available before, they must be managed carefully.

And more than that, we all know that there are still things broken in Ireland that need to be fixed. Little things, like child poverty, a health system creaking at the seams, education that often seems more like a privilege than a right.

I still believe that the present government, despite making some choices I fundamentally disagree with, did a good job in the last five years, and that it deserves a second chance. But Fine Gael in particular really need to cop themselves on. I’m not voting to squander a fragile recovery, and I’m not voting to see precious resources handed out to high earners.

I want to vote for a government that will honestly begin to address what’s wrong — that will set out to fix the things that are broken.

After all we’ve been through, we deserve nothing less.