Singing the blues

What a difference a year makes.

In Jul 2011, as the Dáil was rising for its summer recess, everything was going swimmingly for the Taoiseach and his Government.

On Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011, Enda Kenny, astutely judging the public mood and the extent of his own political capital, issued a thundering denunciation of the Vatican following the publication of the Cloyne report on clerical child sex abuse.

While some would criticise the speech, the overwhelming reaction was one of praise.

On Thursday, Jul 21, a new opinion poll was published showing that Kenny had become the most popular political leader in the country for the first time, with his personal approval ratings up by 16 points to 53% since the February general election. The approval ratings of Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore had also increased, in his case by four points to 44%.

Later that night, at an emergency summit in Brussels, EU leaders agreed a deal to cut the interest charged on Ireland’s bailout loans.

It would have been understandable if Kenny thought he had cracked the role of Taoiseach at that stage. An awful lot seemed to be going his way.

A year later, he and his Government find themselves in much more turbulent waters as the Dáil recess gets under way.

Among their difficulties:

* Two of Kenny’s chief allies, James Reilly and Phil Hogan, have endured disastrous times in their respective departments, Health and Environment. Some 600,000 people refused to pay Mr Hogan’s household charge by the deadline, a massive snub to the Government. As for Dr Reilly, there is a budget over-run in the health services and he’s embroiled in personal controversy over his listing as a debt defaulter in Stubbs Gazette.

* Dr Reilly has overseen a communications breakdown which has left Labour seething. Senior figures in the party were already unhappy with his performance in Health and, in particular, his refusal to meet the Programme for Government commitment to reducing consultants’ pay. But his failure to inform the Cabinet at last week’s meeting of the imminent resignation of HSE chief executive Cathal Magee left the Tánaiste and his Labour colleagues to learn of the development from media reports. It may well be an isolated incident — Labour made it clear that its anger is directed at Dr Reilly, not the Taoiseach or Fine Gael — but breakdowns on this scale can poison working relations.

* Labour junior minister Róisín Shortall’s proposals to curb alcohol abuse have met with opposition from Fine Gael ministers, and have been kicked to touch until September.

* Abortion is back on the political agenda, even if many politicians would privately wish it wasn’t. There are divisions between Fine Gael and Labour on the issue. There are also divisions within Fine Gael and within Labour on the issue.

* Kenny himself is in danger of developing a reputation as a political hollow man. He suggested files in the Department of the Taoiseach about the bank guarantee had been “either shredded or disposed of” by the previous administration, but had no evidence to back up the claim. He shirked from participating in debates during the fiscal treaty campaign, despite saying it was “the most important referendum for many years.” He recoiled from the media when asked about gay marriage, and refused to state his own personal view. And, last week, he gave an answer to a question about the Reilly-Labour communications breakdown — saying among other things that “when you speak, you have to use words obviously” — which gave the potentially lethal impression of a politician unable to think clearly on his feet.

* The fallout from the 1995 awarding of the State’s second mobile phone licence to Denis O’Brien’s Esat by a Government which featured several of the same members as the current Cabinet — including Mr Kenny — hasn’t gone away. Two unsuccessful bidders have won the right to proceed with a legal challenge to the manner in which the licence was awarded. Mr Kenny repeatedly failed in the Dáil last week to state whether he accepted the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, which found that the then-Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry had helped Mr O’Brien to win the licence. It is likely the Taoiseach will continue to be pressed on the matter.

* And then there’s the small matter of the December budget, in which another €3.6bn combination of tax hikes and spending cuts has to be found. As the Government prepares for this budget, it will essentially have to down tools in the middle of the process to campaign for the children’s rights referendum, which it has pledged to hold in the autumn.

Against all this, the Coalition could argue it is making progress. There was a further breakthrough at EU level on Ireland’s bank debt recently, with a real possibility the country’s debt levels could be substantially reduced. The Personal Insolvency Bill to help people mired in debt is proceeding through the Dáil. And the Government has announced an additional €2.25bn of investment in infrastructure to boost the economy and create jobs.

But even on these fronts, progress is slower than the Government would like. The negotiations to hammer out the fine detail of the bank debt deal will take months. It is unlikely that the first debt settlement agreements under the Personal Insolvency Bill will be reached until early next year — circa two years after the Government came to power. The funding detail around the investment package is vague, and many of the construction projects involved won’t start until 2014 or 2015 — raising questions about the package’s practical effect on the near-15% unemployment rate.

In a poll at the end of May, Mr Kenny’s approval ratings were down to 36% and Mr Gilmore’s 26%. The honeymoon is a distant, faded memory. The practical difficulties of governing are now evident to all. Solutions to problems are almost never comprehensive. Getting legislation through the system is a painstakingly slow process. Ministers can and will clash on policy issues. Backbenchers can and will cause problems. And so on.

Today will be the last Cabinet meeting for a few weeks as ministers prepare for the traditional August break.

It cannot come soon enough for many. But they know that when they return, a difficult autumn looms.