The Politics of Virtue
(August 2010)
It remains to be seen if the era of Fianna Fáil dominance has come to an end or if the mould of Irish politics has been broken. Labour Comment cannot claim to know the future. It can only go on the evidence presented to it. On the evidence of the last month the appearance of change has masked a conservative substance. That Eamon Gilmore would rather be Tánaiste in a Fine Gael Government than Taoiseach in a Fianna Fáil one shows that Labour has not departed from its traditional mindset.
The system has stabilised because the Opposition has proved itself incapable of offering an alternative. Since 1932 Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics. From time to time the second party, Fine Gael, has succeeded in forming a government with the help of Labour. And Labour has been content to fulfil this modest role. Fine Gael considered that it, rather than Fianna Fáil, was the natural party of government and the basis for this was that it was morally superior to Fianna Fáil. Garret FitzGerald, who some thought was not a typical Fine Gaeler, denounced Charles Haughey for having a “flawed pedigree”. The Fianna Fáiler’s flaws were not merely a reflection of flawed moral choices but were congenital.
What is the source of Fianna Fáil ‘corruption’? Perhaps the original sin was its opposition to the Treaty. One could make a very strong case that the Treaty was the best that could be achieved, but the Republicans who were active in the War did not like it presented as a fait accompli. Fianna Fáil based itself on this active element. The pro-Treaty party preferred to rely on the moral authority that an agreement negotiated under duress with the British Empire gave it. An authority which is independent of the society proved a flimsy basis for political success but the party could say that it retained its virtue.
Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, harnessed the active elements in the society and undermined the Treaty settlement at every opportunity. But such an active engagement with the society has its risks because the people are all too human. It is the silly season, so last month we had the spectacle of Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton denouncing her party on moral grounds, but that was an amusing sideshow from someone who takes the morality of the Sunday Independent seriously. Perhaps she should join the Labour Party!
Labour has been the social conscience of Fine Gael. Every so often it threatens to be something else, but nothing ever comes of it. In 1992 Labour went into coalition with Fianna Fáil and for a brief period there was a possibility that it would become something else. There was talk of Dick Spring becoming Taoiseach but the pressure of not being itself was too much for Labour. In 1994 Spring had shown remarkable skill in outmanoeuvring Albert Reynolds over the appointment of a conservative Attorney General to the Supreme Court.
The formal basis for Reynolds’s resignation as Taoiseach was flimsy but there was a substantial political objective that had been achieved. The Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, and. ultimately, Albert Reynolds had become an obstacle to liberal reform. Their removal represented a substantial victory for supporters of liberal and social reform. The conservative Reynolds was succeeded as leader of Fianna Fáil by Bertie Ahern who had labour sympathies. But, at the moment of truth, The Irish Times was on hand to remind Labour what it was and that it could not be anything else.
A story by Geraldine Kennedy claimed that, whatever wrong Reynolds did—and 16 years later we find it too tedious to recall never mind write about it—the Fianna Fáil Front Bench knew about it and therefore was implicated in Reynolds’s wrongdoing. Labour decided that Fianna Fáil was unfit for Government. The moral humbug had become more important than the fact of Reynold’s removal.
There was no more talk of rotating Taoisigh. Labour returned to the arms of Fine Gael in the manner of a prodigal who had been out in the world but had realised the error of his ways. And, throughout the Celtic Tiger era, it retained its virtue in opposition. But, now that the Celtic Tiger has expired, it appears that the Irish people have discovered an appetite for virtue.
The media have nurtured the belief that the Celtic Tiger was created by the people’s own efforts and that it has suddenly been taken away by domestic corruption and Government incompetence. One of the most open economies in the world should have been made impervious to the world economy! The Government ‘should have known’ and should have done something. But neither the media nor the Opposition told it when it might have made a difference. And even now they cannot tell it what to do, only that what it is doing is morally repugnant. “NAMA is a moral abomination” [National Asset Management Agency. established in 2009 to deal with property loans in the world economic crisis—and recently wound up, having done its work, Ed.]
But what is the alternative? Should the loans be kept in the books of the banks at overstated values while they slowly repair their balance sheets as was done in Japan?
“Anglo Irish Bank was a corrupt institution and should be closed down”. Does this mean the State should renege on the Bank Guarantee to depositors? “The guarantee was wrong”. Should the State have risked the collapse of the banking system? It is one of the characteristics of the politics of virtue that its proponents exempt themselves from considering real world consequences.
We suspect that the level of support for the Opposition parties will diminish. In the meantime, 16 years after the collapse of the Labour/Fianna Fáil coalition, The Irish Times (21.7.10) again reminded the Labour Party of what it was. In an interview with Eamon Gilmore it extracted the following promise: “We have made it clear all along that our intention is to get Fianna Fáil out of government in the next election”.
The interviewer then asked if Gilmore: “… would rather serve as Tánaiste with Fine Gael than as taoiseach with Fianna Fáil?” To which Gilmore replied:
“I want to be absolutely clear … I don’t want there to be any ambiguity about this. Fianna Fáil must be put out of government at the next election.”
Despite the enormous changes that have occurred since Fine Gael was last in government Irish politics continues to revolve around the same axis. It is Fianna Fáil versus the rest.
[Irish Political Review, August 2010]
