Irish people still waiting for a ‘new beginning’... two years on
They were the first words he uttered as Taoiseach. In the first line of the first speech, when he rose to his feet in the Dáil as leader of the country, Enda Kenny told the Irish people: “This day marks a new beginning.”
He had on his benches the biggest majority in the history of the State, the strongest mandate from the electorate after what he himself described as “the revolution at the ballot box”.
After the messy collapse of the Cowen government, the loss of economic sovereignty, and the broken trust in the political system, the new Taoiseach promised to pull the country out of the miserable place in which it found itself.
He would “approach the crisis as an opportunity and a chance to reinvent our country and to create a new Ireland that works, and is fair and honest”. He pledged: “I am entering into a covenant with the Irish people to tell them the truth.”
That was on this day two years ago. As both his personal popularity and that of his Fine Gael party and the Government drop in the polls, despite notable achievements, the question that arises is: Do the people feel that covenant was broken? There are many reasons to believe this administration is as disposed as its predecessors to telling untruths or being less than straight with the Irish people.
He was just a couple of days in office when Kenny signalled, despite campaign rhetoric, that burning the bondholders was off the table.
It was an early and crashing disappointment to those who had voted Fine Gael in the belief that the party would take a very different economic path to its predecessors, but in many ways a sign of what was to come.
While the economy has been steered with more capable hands along a more steady path, the policy remains largely the same. Austerity continued, the bailout agreement with the troika remained largely unchanged, the banks continued to be supported by the State without any losses imposed on senior bondholders.
Under the promissory note deal, the debt relating to Anglo has been permanently attached to the Irish sovereign.
But the repayment dates have been pushed out to future generations, meaning breathing space for this generation and hopefully stalling its mass exodus to Australia, Canada, and other faraway places to find work.
Another big promise of his opening speech was to bring accountability and transparency to government and restore trust in politicians.
Yet just weeks ago, it emerged that Health Minister James Reilly requested the speeding up of upgrades to the local hospitals of two cabinet colleagues, Brendan Howlin and Phil Hogan. The controversy unsurprisingly gave a strong affirmation of the notion already gathering pace, that this government was not all that different to the last — that it was politics as usual.
And it involved two of Kenny’s chief allies, Reilly and Hogan, who have endured disastrous times in their respective departments of Health and Environment, and appear to be a liability to the Coalition.
Some 600,000 people refused to pay Hogan’s household charge by the deadline, a massive snub to the Government.
As for Reilly, there is a budget overrun in the health services and he’s embroiled in personal controversy over his listing as a debt defaulter in Stubbs Gazette.
Kenny himself also made a number of personal pledges which he has now reneged on, such as promising to protect emergency & services at Roscommon Hospital and looking campaigner Joanne O’Riordan in the eye and telling her there would be no more cuts to disability services.
A recent series of polls show that notable triumphs for the Coalition, including the deal on the promissory note payments and the apology to the Magdalene survivors, have given little or no boost to the Government’s dropping popularity.
Recent focus group research by Red C and published in the Sunday Business Post found the most common reason for shifting support from Fine Gael and Labour to Fianna Fáil was that they had failed to honour their pre-election promises.
There is a feeling that the “revolution at the ballot box” didn’t quite succeed.
It is likely that, by the next election, the delivery of the most important promise — to fix the broken economy — will mean the coalition may be forgiven for all the other ones they have broken.
But on this, its second anniversary in office, people have not seen the promised new beginning, but rather the same, but different, to what went before.
He came into office as Taoiseach with a record majority and a big promise of recovery, jobs, and that he would fix the broken economy and broken political system.
His Government has largely stuck to the policies of repaying the bank debt and adhered to the bailout plan of its predecessors. But it has steered the economy in a better direction, with a steadier hand.
Controversies surrounding some of his ministers have given the impression that nothing has been achieved by way of political reform.
This, coupled with his failure to get a real handle on the jobs crisis, has meant there was little boost from the deal on the promissory note arrangement.
But the agreement was no doubt Kenny’s biggest triumph and may have secured his second term as Taoiseach by helping the country out of the bailout and towards an end to austerity budgets.
The damage from his initial, botched handling of the report on the Magdalene Laundries was limited after he took the time to personally meet the women and deliver an emotion Dáil apology.
The outcome of the planned referendum on the abolition of the Seanad, and how he handles the abortion legislation, will have a large bearing on his credibility among his own party, and the public.
The Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister’s failure to take a key economic role has dented his credibility and reduced his profile on the domestic scene, as he concentrates on Europe as foreign minister at a time Ireland is the rotational head of the EU.
He insisted Labour could not afford the luxury of opposition and had to go into government to tone down the right-wing excesses of Fine Gael in an age of austerity.
Yet critics argue Labour’s identity has become subsumed in a Fine Gael- dominated, economically right-wing austerity administration.
Backers counter-claim that the direction is dictated by the troika and there is little anyone in Government Buildings can do about that.
Whoever is correct, Labour has seen its popularity slashed in the polls.
Labour was publicly humiliated by Fine Gael in last-minute budget horse- trading when Enda Kenny said a Universal Social Charge rise for top earners could only go ahead alongside an across-the-board cut in welfare payments.
A compromise mansion tax was no shelter for the public rage unleashed when child benefit was cut for all by €10.
Rebel TDs are forming their “Real Labour” alternative in the Dáil, and the highly ambitious Joan Burton is nicely positioned to try and pull the rug from under him if she so chooses.
As Finance Minister he inherited a tattered economy, a deficit of 13% of GDP, a bailout agreement with the troika which he had described as “a bad deal for Ireland”, and a series of complex arrangements around the €64bn bank bailout.
Two years in, Michael Noonan has steadied the ship and is steering the economy in the right direction... for now.
He showed his nerve in his steady approach to negotiations on promissory notes while others panicked. The deal was struck, pushing debt out to 2038. This ended any hope of burning bondholders, but reduced the national deficit by €1bn over the next two years. He has secured agreement to delay the date for paying back the loans owed to the troika.
But his big test will be whether he can secure support to allow the EU’s permanent rescue fund — the ESM — to retrospectively fund Irish banks.
By the end of this term, Mr Noonan will have failed to break the ties with the bondholders. But he’s likely to have brought some normality to the banking system and met the 3% deficit target.
Ultimately, he will have brought the country back to the private markets, regaining economic sovereignty — something that will do no harm to his party’s reputation heading into the next election.
The doctor’s bedside manner has proved decidedly chilly, as after starting out his health portfolio as the man who would deliver universal health insurance by 2016, he has become a toxic political brand dubbed the “stroke specialist” after a spate of controversies.
Dr Reilly abolished the HSE board, but opposition TDs complained it smacked of tokenism and left the organisation even less effective than before. Success with reducing the number of patients languishing on trolleys has been forgotten, after he repeatedly cut services for the disabled.
A spectacular public bust-up with his junior minister Róisín Shortall saw her quit the Government after accusing him of “stroke politics” when two sites in his own constituency leapt up a priority table to suddenly appear on a short list. Other rows followed, including accusations he prioritised health upgrades in the constituencies of senior cabinet colleagues.
A children’s hospital is finally to be built, but Dr Reilly failure to provide a definitive completion date did not inspire confidence.
His enemies view him as bombastic bluffer, but his supporters see him as the strong medicine needed to cure the crisis- ridden health service of its ills.
Named as a debtor who failed to comply with a High Court ruling, he remains in Cabinet as Enda Kenny’s political body guard.
The “go-to” Labour Cabinet minister for Government TDs who want to get something done has played a steady hand after part of the Finance Department was ceded to him in a scrappy coalition deal to share economic power.
Controlling public expenditure and reform has seen him take a leading role in the Croke Park II talks and he will be the minister dumped upon if unions reject it.
His credibility took a knock when he promised a “bonfire of the allowances” only to abolish just one of the more than 1,000 special pay rates and perks available to the public service.
The embarrassment caused meant a bigger cull was announced later, but one that still fell well short of what critics wanted.
His department’s spending review, dug into financing across the Government and identified where savings could and would be made was more successful.
Mr Howlin steals some of the limelight on Budget Day by announcing spending cuts while Michael Noonan does the revenue-raising measures, but Labour TDs fear this brands them as the party of cuts in the public mind.
Admirers say he is managing to maintain industrial peace with his commitment to the Croke Park deal, critics insist it is all about protecting Labour votes in the public sector unions.
As Minister for Education he promised to be one of the more reforming ministers with a programme to diversify school patronage, do away with rote learning and improve literacy.
His biggest and boldest promise was to maintain the rate of college fees, something he reneged on in a blow to his party’s popularity and credibility as the defenders of the poor and working class.
Reforms are under way on school patronage and he has introduced changes to the Junior Cert.
He appears set to reduce the state subvention to fee-paying schools which will please his Labour backbenchers.
But he also appears willing to give in to Fine Gael demands to set a high bar on means testing farm assets for college grants — something his own party TDs will not be happy with.
Quinn also faces pressure from his backbenchers to reduce state funds for fee-paying schools. But others in the coalition on the Fine Gael side warn this could actually to the taxpayers’ costs.
It also remains to be seen whether rumours of his desire to go to Europe as Ireland’s next commissioner come true.
One of just three women in Cabinet, she was disappointed to have been overlooked for Labour’s share of the finance portfolio which went to Brendan Howlin. She took over the biggest spending department, social protection, where she had to find a way of implementing huge cuts in the face of growing unemployment.
But despite her department bearing the brunt of budget cuts, she has emerged relatively unscathed, with most Labour back bench anger over cuts to the respite care grant and other welfare payments, focused at leader, Eamon Gilmore.
She has remained one of the few ministers with a coherent vision of the direction in which she wants to take her department.
But one area she has failed to reform is child benefit. Instead of publishing a report recommending a two-tier system, she chose to cut the payment by €10 per child in the last budget.
Always astute politically, she was the first person in Cabinet to suggest the €1bn savings from the promissory note deal should be used to ease budgets.
Over the coming years, she will be subject to more speculation about her leadership ambitions. If the party suffers a big defeat in the 2014 local elections, she has positioned herself well to step up to the job.
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