Public anger catching the Coalition

After a period of grace‚ frustration with the government is becoming evident‚ writes Political Editor Paul O’Brien

LAST November, shortly before the details of the EU/IMF bailout were announced, the then enterprise minister Batt O’Keeffe was confronted by an angry protester outside Leinster House who grabbed him by his tie, attempted to tighten it around his neck and roared “shame on you” in his face.

Even though public fury with the Fianna Fáil-Green government was reaching its height, O’Keeffe, a genial, popular politician, would not have been considered a lightning rod for protest.

Gardaí on duty at Leinster House quickly intervened. But the incident — which followed the vandalism of transport minister Noel Dempsey’s constituency office and the throwing of paint over health minister Mary Harney — highlighted how ugly things had become.

Eight months on, the general election has come and gone, a different administration is in charge, and the serving Enterprise Minister, Richard Bruton, is able to walk from Leinster House to his department a few hundred yards up Kildare Street and stop into a coffee shop along the way without fear of being accosted.

The mood has brightened and the sense of the country being on the brink of Greek-style riots has lifted.

Or has it? Has the Coalition merely been afforded a period of truce while people assess whether it is capable of lifting this country from the mire?

Many politicians in the new administration spoke of the election being a “cathartic” moment, when the public took out its anger on Fianna Fáil and the Greens.

Following the election, Fine Gael and Labour agreed their Programme for Government and, in the foreword to the document, expressed their faith in the spirit of citizens to endure through the economic crisis: “The challenge facing the new Government is unlike any other. Our economy and our politics have been shattered. But our people’s spirit has not. And that is the spark.

“The spark that encourages a new Government to look to the future with a sense of hope. A sense of hope that with the right plans, the right people, and with a unified sense of purpose our country can recover.”

But there’s something of the blithe assertion about that language.

It presupposes that the catharsis is complete, that the national spirit (in as much as such a thing exists and can be judged) will remain intact, and that the public will continue to support the Government through the coming years of austerity.

This week, the administration got perhaps the first signs that this may not be the case.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan reiterated his exhortation for people to go shopping in order to boost the economy.

But his call was widely greeted with disbelief and derision. At a time when many people were struggling to pay the bills or keep up mortgage repayments, Mr Noonan’s call was, as veteran political commentator Olivia O’Leary put it, simply crass.

The call came as Greece was facing a crucial series of parliamentary votes which had implications for the rest of Europe.

While there was such uncertainty hanging over the future of the eurozone — and Ireland’s place in it — it seemed surreal for the finance minister to be encouraging citizens scared witless by events of the last three years to dip into their pockets and spend.

Then there was the sight of Enda Kenny getting his first real taste of protest as Taoiseach.

Up to now, it has largely been dream publicity all the way — visiting the White House for Paddy’s Day, hosting the reciprocal visit of Barack Obama to Dublin, and having the Queen over for tea just for good measure.

But there were no smiles or happy faces in Athlone on Monday when Mr Kenny was confronted by protestors angry at plans to shut the A&E unit at Roscommon Hospital.

His arrival in Newcastle West, Limerick, was greeted with protests against proposed cuts for school bus services.

Separately, Health Minister James Reilly issued a stark warning to hospitals that they would have to remain within their own budgets this year, as there would simply be no extra money available if they ran over.

Not long after that warning, he ran into difficulties with his Fine Gael colleagues, who complained in a parliamentary party meeting that election promises to maintain services in a number of hospitals around the country were being broken.

“We’ve been betrayed and the people have been betrayed,” one anonymous TD said.

With such a large parliamentary party, Enda Kenny would have known that there would be unhappiness and dissent within Fine Gael at some Government decisions. He could even have safely predicted that decisions on health services would be among the first to trigger such dissent.

But he might not have expected it so soon. And it is hardly a good sign that protests are beginning internally as well as externally this early in the Government’s term.

The Coalition may already be paying the price for the rash glut of election promises that were never likely to be achievable.

If the two parties had not promised quite as much — such as burning senior bondholders, for example — both the public and their own backbenchers might have been more patient.

But as things stand, it seems the patience is already beginning to wear thin.

Should Richard Bruton’s proposals to reform wage-setting mechanisms for low-paid workers meet the approval of the EU and IMF — and it is they who will have final say — more protests can be expected.

And in terms of the horrible work the Government has to do, it is only at the beginning.

Under the terms and conditions of the bailout, the December budget has to save €3.6 billion through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts — and that’s assuming the economic forecasts and tax revenues stay on track until then.

In the meantime, as the Government desperately tries to pitch a message of optimism, a weary public is greeted with revelations of semi-state bosses getting five and six-figure bonuses — which they relinquish only after much pressure is brought to bear — and taxpayers’ money being abused to help a politician win a reality TV show.

Such incidents — while not the Government’s fault — reinforce the perception that it’s one law for those at the top, and another for the rest of society.

In the Programme for Government, Fine Gael and Labour said they would approach the task of rebuilding the economy and society informed by the words of Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

Lessons have been learned from the past. Many people are living for today — but only because they don’t know what kind of a financial future they have.

Therein lies the problem with the “hope for tomorrow” bit. Right now, the Government is far from fostering that.