Changing Irish Political Landscape

With a general election due in Ireland by early 2016 at the latest, the big political debate in the country at present is about the rapidly changing political landscape. A succession of opinion polls would indicate that the electorate is very volatile, with a big increase in support for Sinn Féin, independents and smaller parties. With the start of a deep recession arising from the collapse of the Irish housing and personal debts bubbles in 2008, the guarantee of deposits and most debts in banks, and the bailout by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in November 2010, the ruling Fianna Fáil and Green Government disintegrated and were annihilated in the general election held on February 25, 2011. The Fine Gael party won twenty-five seats to bring its total to the highest ever at seventy-six, Labour won seventeen to bring its total to thirty-seven, Sinn Féin secured fourteen (up by nine), and Others (chiefly Independents) secured nineteen (up by fourteen). The dominant political party since 1932, Fianna Fáil, lost fifty-eight seats in a parliament of one hundred and sixty-six and came back with a mere twenty, while their partners in the outgoing Government, the Greens, lost all their six seats. On March 9, Mayo-born Enda Kenny was elected as the State’s thirteenth Taoiseach in a Fine Gael/Labour Government in the thirty-first Dáil. Irish people voted for major changes and a new dawn, but the economic, fiscal, banking, personal debt and unemployment issues facing the new Government were huge. It followed the economic plan of its predecessor, based on retrenchment, because it had little choice as it had been agreed with the troika providing the funding to bridge the fiscal deficit and re-structure the banks. The troika left on December 15, 2013.

Achieving the demanding macro-economic targets set came with a political cost, with declining support for the government parties. After six years of austerity in 2014, a proposal to introduce a water charge led to street protests, but they were really a response to the cumulative effects of all the cutbacks, tax increases and other charges imposed since 2008. The financial retrenchment has several social effects, with many, especially the unemployed and those on low incomes, finding it difficult to meet their needs. This despondency is leading to strong political support for critics of austerity. Now, opinion polls are showing Fine Gael with around 22 per cent support, Fianna Fáil 18 per cent, Labour six, Sinn Féin over 20 per cent, with independents (covering the spectrum from left to right) and smaller parties on over thirty per cent. The polls indicate huge disillusionment with the established political parties and big hostility to austerity. It is a huge surprise to see that the two big right wing parties are not able to command fifty per cent between them, something which would be deemed incredible a few years ago. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil emerged from a split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 6, 1921, with the former gaining many new members under the leadership of Dr Garret FitzGerald from 1977 and the latter doing the same after Seán Lemass took over as leader in 1959. Both parties dominated the Irish politics since 1922, with one of them leading every government since independence. However, the next government could still be a coalition of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and like-minded independents. Such a development would finally end any remaining vestiges of civil war polities, and lead to a right left divide in the country, at a time when these traditional paradigms are being challenged in other countries.

Bernard O'Hara's latest book entitled Killasser: Heritage of a Mayo Parish is now on sale in the USA and UK as a paperback book at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or Barnes and Noble

It is also available as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).

An earlier publication, a concise biography of Michael Davitt, entitled Davitt by Bernard O’Hara published in 2006 by Mayo County Council , is now available as Davitt: Irish Patriot and Father of the Land League by Bernard O’Hara, which was published in the USA by Tudor Gate Press (www.tudorgatepress.com) and is available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. It can be obtained as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).