Republican News · Thursday 16 May 2002

Fine Gael stare down the barrel

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

Fine Gael don't seem to understand that their picky politics have little meaning for the electorate and using a TV broadcast to promise car pooling drivers access to bus lanes shows how out of touch and redundant they are

How did it go wrong for Fine Gael? As they gnaw over a television debate that a lot of self appointed media pundits believe was won by Michael Noonan, how will they compare that with two polls that show voter support haemorrhaging.

Polls by Irish Marketing Surveys in the Independent and the Market Research Bureau of Ireland in the Times show Fine Gael's vote share at 18% and 21%, respectively.

This is all the more remarkable given that the party won nearly 28% of the vote in 1997 and has been in opposition for five years. Even New Labour lost some vote share to the squabbling and divided Conservatives in last year's Westminster elections, yet Fianna Fáil are set to widen the gap between them and Fine Gael.

In the key Dublin region, support is falling to the 1992 low of 17%. Up until the 1950s, Fine Gael support in Dublin outstripped its national standing with the exception of the three Garret FitzGerald elections between 1981 and 1982.

As the electorate has grown and Irish society has evolved becoming more urban, middle class and educated there has at the same time been a continual decline in party support in this key area.

Fine Gael's problems stem from three roots, ideology, image and leadership. 16f

Ideologically, Fine Gael were outflanked. Fine Gael's finest hours were during the three elections in 1981 and 1982. The party won support on the basis of FitzGerald's supposed leadership ability, liberal credentials and a manifesto steeped in the new right monetarism so popular at the time. This brought them 39% of the vote in November 1982, exactly where Fianna Fáil were five years ago.

These elections were crucial because up until then the party's terms in office only came after long periods of uninterrupted Fianna Fáil government and Fine Gael never managed two consecutive terms in office.

1982 should have been the beginning of a two or three election sequence in government for "Garret the Good". They blew it spectacularly with badly planned and mistimed referenda on divorce and abortion. Add to this a huge dollop of economic turmoil mixed with a general inability to take action and we ended up with three Fianna Fail lead governments in 1987, '89 and '93.

Garret retired prematurely in 1987 and Fine Gael, who had led the way in the use of opinion poll technology in the 1970s, now seemed to unlearn all of the lessons of the late 1970s and early '80s, when they finally began to make up serious ground on Fianna Fáil.

With FitzGerald shuffling off, Fine Gael lost their key electoral asset. Then new leader Alan Dukes made perhaps their greatest blunder and the one from which it seems they will ultimately never recover. Fianna Fáil in 1987 was in a minority government. They began to implement what was then seen as Fine Gael type policies of cutting public spending, while beginning to cut income and business taxes also.

Dukes, in what is now called the "Tallaght Strategy", agreed that Fine Gael TDs would not bring down Fianna Fáil as long as they implemented Fine Gael type policies. He had undermined the reason for Fine Gael's existence. How would an electorate be able to decide between two centre right parties with identical policies? Now it was down to personality.

This was difficult for Fine Gael, as now we had a political elite using sound bite television, radio and print media appearances as the main method of communicating with its audiences. Fine Gael were, with Dukes, Bruton and even more so with Noonan, falling way behind in the charisma and communication stakes.

The dumping of Bruton because of poor opinion poll performance showed a directionless party, ineffective in opposition and unconvincing as an alternative government.

Think back to the Bruton-led government of 1994 to '97. What stands out? Nothing. Fianna Fáil, for better or worse, are the masters of focusing in on the big image. They leave their mark, whether in the public mind or even the physical spaces we live in.

For example, of all the Leinster House parties, Fianna Fáil have made the running on the peace process and have used that in billboards, ads and broadcasts. It was they who in the 1980s built the Financial Services Centre, understanding way more than Fine Gael would its symbolic value in years to come. It was they who gave the go ahead for and marked the start of the port tunnel last week.

In some sense, you can understand Bertie's obsession with the 'national' stadium. Had the Millennium Dome been a success in Britain, it would have been the physical hallmark of New Labour. Fine Gael don't seem to understand that their picky politics have little meaning for the electorate and using a TV broadcast to promise car pooling drivers access to bus lanes shows how out of touch and redundant they are.

The only people who don't want Fine Gael to implode are Fianna Fáil. With Fine Gael they can avoid real debate with the Left in Ireland and score points over their diet coke rivals. This time around Fine Gael is hanging over the precipice and the rope is chafing.