Fine Gael conference - Kenny has everything to play for

WITH barely 18 months to the next general election, significant tremors were felt on the political landscape at the weekend as a rejuvenated Fine Gael flexed newfound muscles so vigorously that its planned marriage with Labour could be jeopardised.

After being massacred in the last Dáil elections, the up-beat Millstreet conference suggests the party now fancies its chances of getting back into power.

But the immediate challenge facing Enda Kenny, the first FG leader for years not to have knives in his back, will be to keep Labour on side after ruling out the possibility of an increase in capital taxation from a coalition led by him.

Doubtless, many party delegates at Millstreet were relieved to see a line drawn in the sand on the thorny question of taxation but the move will be viewed by Labour supporters as a body blow to their proposed planned.

With the vows still a matter of debate, the blunt Kenny message was that under a Fine Gael-led government, there would be no increase in personal, corporate or capital taxation.

With Labour intent on jacking up capital taxation in a more equitable system, this bombshell development could be a sticking point when the dowry is placed on the table.

Generally speaking, in a game where perception means everything, the radically re-organised party is betting the current mood for political change will still prevail when the next general election comes.

But despite wheeling out a raft of new policies and an ambitious crop of young candidates, and notwithstanding its recovery at the local elections as Fianna Fáil crashed, Fine Gael will have their work cut out to win the hearts and minds of enough voters to go it alone with Labour.

Failure to achieve that elusive target would result in the Greens and PDs being invited to join them in bed, with the outcome still uncertain.

Widely perceived as the farmers’ party, rural members of Fine Gael remain sceptical of the Green Party stance on agriculture, especially its opposition to live cattle exports.

However, in an environmental package designed to woo the Greens, who remain aloof from coalition overtures, Fine Gael would promote bio-fuels by lowering taxes on alternative energy and penalising people who own four-wheel-drive gas guzzlers.

On a broader political canvass, the current Coalition’s chronic failure to give taxpayers value for money on a raft of major projects has handed Fine Gael a big stick with which to beat the administration. Pointing the finger at Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Deputy Kenny condemned wasteful public spending.

He made it clear that waste or incompetence would not be tolerated in any Fine Gael government. Anyone responsible for the likes of the PPARS health service computer would be shown the door.

After eight years of coalition government, the health service is in crisis, stealth taxes have eroded the benefits flagged of its much vaunted low tax regime, and it has failed to deliver on decentralisation.

But by election time, Fianna Fáil and the PDs will be counting on the largesse flowing from the Coalition’s SSIA scheme to seduce over a million voters who will have thousands of extra euro in their pockets.

The political reality is that the economy has never been in better shape.

With unemployment at an all-time low, and the building industry still booming, it would be foolhardy of Fine Gael and Labour to write off the outgoing Coalition’s chances of returning to power.

And yet, with everything to play for, the Millstreet conference showed a resurgent Fine Gael, convinced it has what it takes to offer the voters an alternative government.