Fine Gael hot around the collar
BY MICHAEL PIERSE
Fine Gael representatives' recent behaviour has been more like that of headless chickens than confident alternatives to Fianna Fáil. The reality that Michael Noonan's election was more a last-ditch act of desparation than a bright new beginning for the party is fast sinking in.
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Be prepared for a sustained attack on Sinn Féin from Fine Gael and Labour in the coming months, but don't be fooled. It is they who are running scared.
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Fine Gael had bad, boring leadership - that was what had led to their demise in the polls, according to Michael Noonan and Jim Mitchell, who now sit as leader and deputy leader of the party. They both put their blindfolds on and pinned the tail of blame on the proverbial political donkey - John Bruton. But the intoxicating pizazz that followed the intial blaze of publicity that was prompted by Bruton's ousting has quickly died off, and Fine Gael have been left with one of those hangovers that simply won't go away.
No sooner had Noonan abseiled up the wall of his `end corporate donations' ivory tower than his party was struck with yet more allegations of corruption. Businessman Denis O'Brien's sale of his stake in Esat Digifone last year landed him with a whopping £238 million. He had plenty of reasons to be grateful for the decision of a Fine Gael-led coalition government in 1995 to grant Esat the lucrative second mobile phone license for the 26 Counties. But then, so had Fine Gael.
After the Esat sale, O'Brien handed in £50,000 to the party, but this was not his first donation. Esat had also given the party $50,000 dollars in 1995 - the year before they received the mobile license, and at a time when his company was on the verge of going bust. The recent revelation of this earlier donation has prompted claims of bribery against the party and landed them in the political doghouse.
But isn't this the party whose deputy leader, Jim Mitchell, has chaired the much respected Public Accounts Committee, charged with eradicating political corruption?
Yes, but Mitchell's teflon image has also been tarnished in the last few weeks. He was caught on camera revelling in a publicly funded junket to Argentina, together with Conor Lenihan of Fianna Fáil and Michael Bell of the Labour Party. They were put up in a £300-per-night hotel in Argentina, while apparently investigating how the Argentinians deal with, wait for it... political corruption.
Maybe they could keep their investigations a little closer to home. Another interesting factor in this saga is Mitchell's involvement with Esat. A former communications minister himself, he was employed by the company as a consultant during the processing of their tender for the mobile license in 1995. Still working today with Esat, he denies any knowledge of the Fine Gael donation. For someone so closely involved with both parties to this fiasco, it seems a little far fetched that he was unaware of such a huge contribution. Indeed, the far-fetched nature of all their excuses have left Fine Gael looking a little silly.
other, inevitable, body blow came in the poll that appeared in the Sunday Independent of 11 March. In urban areas in the 26 Counties, it was revealed, Sinn Féin now has 9% of the vote, according to an IMS poll. Fine Gael is down to 13%, marking a steady decline in the crucial urban constituencies.
Jim Mitchell, prior to the anti-Bruton heave, had no doubt about one of the reasons for his party's misfortunes. ``Young people are flocking to Sinn Féin,'' he sobbed. In Dublin, Sinn Féin has climbed to a buoyant 13%, equalling Fine Gael, while the profile of Sinn Féin voters - many of them are young - bodes well for future growth.
This may be why we have seen a decidedly retro look from the party of big business in the last two weeks. Worried by Sinn Féin's growth, they have again assumed the mantle of rabid anti-republicanism (as if they'd ever dropped it) and sent the war horses to the front.
On RTE's Friday six o'clock news, Fine Gael's representative in the Tallaght area of Dublin, Brian Hayes, came out with some of the most rabid anti-republican vitriol that has been heard from the party in years. The 1981 Hunger Strikers were `Protestant killers' and temporary murals erected by the burgeoning Sinn Féin organisation in his area to their memory were unrepresentative of and even insulting to local people, Hayes claimed. He was obviously attempting to score cheap points and it was Sinn Féin's Sean Crowe who emerged well on top.
Then came the old reliable. Jimmy Deenihan, the Fine Gael `Northern Ireland spokesperson', hit out at RTÉ for having a supposed `soft touch' when it comes to Sinn Féin. RTÉ was indicted by Deenihan for presenting Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness in a `positive fashion' during a radio interview on Morning Ireland last week.
The reality is that the likes of Deenihan in Kerry North, where Sinn Féin's Martin Ferris is hotly tipped to take a Leinster House seat in the next general election, and Brian Hayes in Tallaght, where Seán Crowe is also on the verge of a Dáil seat, are terrified by the growth of republicanism. They are shocked at the work rate of Sinn Féin activists and know that their strategy of `ignore them and they'll go away' just hasn't worked. The same is true of the Labour Party, which was also irate at recent RTÉ coverage of Sinn Féin.
Michael Noonan and Ruairi Quinn are of the old school. The way to beat Sinn Féin was always to play the `provos under the bed' card, and no better allies in this endeavour than the establishment media. Now, however, Sinn Féin is on the up, the media is proving more difficult to muster, and it is Labour and Fine Gael who are in crisis. Faced with a more level playing field, the tired leaders and top-heavy organisations that are Labour and Fine Gael stand in stark contrast to an activist-led, youthful and idealistic Sinn Féin.
Be prepared for a sustained attack on Sinn Féin from both these parties in the coming months, but don't be fooled. It is they who are running scared.
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