Comments on: The case for a Grand Coalition

By: Daniel Sullivan

Daniel Sullivan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:32:32 +0000

In part the differences between the party’s cultures are considerably less to do with the civil war itself than they are the aftermath over the following two and half decades.
It is often forgotten that the origins of the two parties are kind of odd. CnaG were only formed from those who were left in government and in the face of an upcoming general election. The party was forced in dealing with problems asw they stood there and then in an upfront manner rather than evolving a policy platform. They were a government that become a party. They had to favour balanced budgets for example and free trade while FF were able to. It would be overstating it to say that Cnag had to take on the role of the responsible elder brother while FF were freer to say and do as they pleased. In fact FF progressively defined their policy positions in direct opposition of what the then CnaG government was doing or failing to do. And that CnaG government was made up of people who just like those in FF had intended when in SF to do as FF promised to do, only CnaG found that the reality of government was markedly different.
There is a view, simplistic and perhaps not wholly accurate but still, strongly held in FG that FF when the going gets tough and decisions have to be made in the nation’s interests simply cut and run. There is no foundation for trust between the parties that FF would face up to difficult decisions when even now with FF making up 90% of the government FF representatives, both national and local persist with playing at being in both government and opposition. Any FG minister in such a grand coalition would always aware that the local FF rep in his constituency would be bad mouthing him behind his back. It’s just in the nature of the political animal.
The other thing is that FF, in its rank and file membership is not wholly a party of the right, nor even neo-liberal. It adopted policies from the neo-liberal agenda in some areas of economic when McCreevy was in charge of finance because of the PDs and the complete absence of policy from Ahern. FF are a populist party of the centre with an ideology driven by results not means. If someone could come up with a means to deliver sustainable economic growth based on the mass production of hemp or the sacrifice of old people to Thoth then it would get a hearing in FF. FG is similarly a party more of results than means but less so that FF, FG would be squeamish about the human sacrifice if only because it might make us less welcome at EPP gatherings, and the hemp thing is just one of those hippy things. It is fairer to say that FG is a conservative party in an arranged marriage with a social democratic party which appears to have been more successful that either family could have hoped for. They have their testing times but there is genuine love there.
There is no compelling reason for national political systems to seek out the tradition left-right divide as the optimum configuration, especially when many of the underpinnings of both sides have been removed. Mass industry is long gone, as are starving children by venture of not enough money to buy food. Now poor parenting skills are the root cause of most childhood deprivation. It is often forgotten that Ireland did not have a large scale industry base at the time of independence and what heavy industry did exist was more concentrated in the north-east of the country which became Northern Ireland. So there was not easy ground for a Labour movement and the Irish voting public is basically a fairly centrist lot. Sure it suits people on the left to demand every once in a while that FF or FG conform to the most internationally prevalent match ups. But they want that because it would suit them. Fact is that as Pat Rabbitte said, you have to get the people who think Labour to vote Labour. And most of those who think Labour vote FF not FG. A grand collation would be a recipe for even more government by civil servants and would lead not to a vibrant political environment but to the Japan political set up post WWII with the LDP formed around factions and permanently in office but with MITI and the civil service in power. A form of corporate governance if you will. And I don’t think that is what people want.

By: John Butler

John Butler — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:03:18 +0000

Your analysis of current policy positions and differences between the parties is fairly spot on. However I think the Punch and Judy nature of the relationship between the two is so deeply ingrained that it will be sometime before such a grand coalition could come about. I think it could only come about when there is absolutely no arithmetic alternative available to form a stable majority in the Dáil. I’d like to see it sooner rather than later but I’m not optimistic.

I’d imagine it might be possible in the following circumstances:

1. FG and Labour form next government and go along OK picking the low hanging fruit of implementing policy areas they can agree on.

2. Following a few years of tough decisions and difficult budgets the really difficult decisions come to be made and Labour decide to make lots of noise and jump ship and dissolve the Dáil while holding the moral high ground on whatever the issue du jour is.

3. By that stage the rise in urban areas of the wider leftist vote will likely increased further such that Labour make gains and are joined with a reasonably sized cohort of SF and assorted Socialists (SP or otherwise) such that the combined leftist membership of the Dáil comes close to 50-60).

4. At that stage I think that the parties of the left will sense that they have more to gain from sticking together than continuing to prop up FF or FG and thus the two large parties will be forced to accept the inevitable and swallow 90 years of bitter rivalry.

Just to note (Gav knows this anyway but I have to consider everyone else in the blogosphere)I’m a FF member – cue rotten tomatoes being thrown here.

By: Irish Election » The case for a Grand Coalition at Gav Reilly | thinking out loud

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:22:24 +0000

[...] The case for a Grand Coalition at Gav Reilly | thinking out loud [...]

By: Gav

Gav — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:24:42 +0000

@Fiscal Student – first of all, thanks for the comment.

In relation to FG succumbing to the stasis of being in power for too long as FF have been, my point is that if the two were to come to power together, they’d ultimately end up merging and then factioning off into a number of splinter groups orientated by standpoint on the political spectrum. A FF-FG coalition wouldn’t last very long, but only because the parties would cease to exist (or at least that’s what I’d hope anyway).

I suppose the same answer goes for the first point about FF getting too used to power; the two parties wouldn’t continue in their current forms. FF is already a loose coalition of different views from all around the country, housed under one party umbrella so as to safeguard their collective chance of governing. FG probably isn’t all that dissimilar. If the two parties were to get together then the pro-choice members (to pluck a random example) of each party would likely faction off into a new liberal party and not be subject to the rigidity of their current parties.

By: Fiscal Student

Fiscal Student — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:10:40 +0000

2 quick points, Many of the mistakes Fianna Fail have made have been in part to the length of time they have been in office. the race tent in Galway for example would never have become the institution it did, if Fianna fail had not been in power for so long. If FF and FG combine imagine how long theyd be in power and how badly theyd have to really fock up before they’d be replaced? considering FF still got >22% of 1st preference votes in EU/local elections.

Why would FG want to do this, at this point in time??