Cracks appearing in the coailition

corkfella

Wednesday December 31 2008

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen faces into a New Year of deepening discontent within his coalition and Cabinet, it emerged last night.

The Greens yesterday bluntly warned him they are capable of walking out of Government.

And Fianna Fail sources insisted that some of their party's ministers are 'positioning' themselves should Mr Cowen suffer a serious electoral setback next year.

In a strong signal to the embattled Taoiseach, Greens' leader John Gormley indicated he was not in the coalition to make up the numbers. As part of a New Year message to party activists, he said: "We are not in Government for the sake of being there. If we are not advancing our aims, then we must -- and we will -- think again."

This is the first clear sign the Greens may be ready to consider an exit strategy if Mr Gormley and fellow Green minister, Eamon Ryan, consider it politically necessary. A Greens spokesman said yesterday there had been "bones of contention" within Government.

Alongside that potentially explosive development, Fianna Fail sources are complaining privately of people "not talking to each other" at Cabinet.

There are also claims of manoeuvrings behind the scenes.

A Dublin TD confirmed he was aware of "machinations" within Fianna Fail with a Cabinet connection. He said there was widespread concern within the party at the Taoiseach's performance so far -- especially in light of record low poll ratings.

Others emphasised the importance of the local and European elections for the Taoiseach -- especially with a vital Lisbon II referendum soon after.

There have been claims and counterclaims about the possible emergence of an anti-Cowen cabal within Fianna Fail. But Mr Gormley has now become the first member of Cabinet to indicate that his support for the Taoiseach could not be taken for granted.

In his New Year message to party supporters, Mr Gormley tells them not to doubt that Green ministers are capable of walking away on their own terms.

Mr Gormley admits, in the message, that he anticipated myriad problems when his party entered Government in June 2007. He says: "But quite frankly I did not foresee the unprecedented scale of the economic difficulties which now face us".

He says he retains his conviction that the party can effectively implement its policies in power. He continues: "As long as we are advancing Green party policies in Government, we must stay the course."

Alarm

The qualified commitment to continuing in coalition is likely to alarm Fianna Fail supporters, who have seen the Government majority in the Dail shrink as the result of walkouts by Joe Behan (ex-FF, Wicklow) and former Government supporter Finian McGrath (Independent, Dublin North Central).

Mr Cowen's Government could almost certainly not survive a Green pullout, especially since he has, as yet, no personal mandate to lead the country.

Last night a spokesman for the Green Party said: "The position remains the same as it always has been since June 2007, when the party members decided to enter Government. The Green Party is in for the long haul, but only as long as it is making progress by having its goals achieved."

He agreed there had been fractious moments between the coalition partners.

"There have been quite a few bones of contention within Government, but they have been resolved by discussion and dialogue behind closed doors."

- Senan Molony Deputy Political Editor

this is an interesting article in the indo, do the greens realize as well as the rest of the country what a bad deal the government have got from the banks, and are refusing to back any further the current incompetent government we have. Maybe the penny has droppped how badly they will perform in the local elections if they stand by and do nothing.

Húrin

brilliant. The Green party need to start acting like a green party.

*cue shouts of 'enviroNazis', 'ecoterrorists,' etc*

Danuogma

Húrin wrote: »

brilliant. The Green party need to start acting like a green party.

*cue shouts of 'enviroNazis', 'ecoterrorists,' etc*

The radical side of the party died when Trevor went to bed with Bertie:o



Come the next election I will enjoy watching whats left of the Green Party crash and burn like the PDs.

CtrlSource

i'm surprised by the rapidity of recent pronouncements from the Greens. For a long time they were (at least publicly) showing a united front with FF. The reaction to the Equality Authority resignation, then Minister Ryan's apparent divergence from Minister Lenihan's position on banking executives and now this New Year's message from the party leader.

It's never a bad idea to gently remind one's coalition partner of the realities of parliamentary arithmetic! Once it's done with a bit of dignity as it was in this case.

i don't see the Greens being prepared to pull out just yet, but perhaps this will ease some of the discontent among the grass roots of the party

Darsad

There is no way the greens will walk they will loose most if not all their seats if there was a general election.They voted with FF to attack the elderly and young in the budget and they dont have the grass roots following that will forgive FF. They then had the stupidity to admit that they voted with the rest of the cabinet on the contensious issue of removing the medical card without knowing the proposed incom threshold.
cant go soon enough I say !!

Darragh29

When I read "cracks" in the thread title, the first thing that came into my mind was the grand canyon. If you think about this for a minute, the government has already had it's majority bumped off by 2 due to the last budget and we know the cuts to date have been absolutely nothing compared to what is around the corner.

I don't see this government making it to Easter Sunday, I reckon we'll see a general election by then. You need a certain type of leadership team to carry a country through these sort of times, and Cowen and Coughlan are certainly not it. The way they appear to be running the cabinet is starting to sound like something straight from a KGB operation, with Cowen, Coughlan and Lenihan making decisions and consulting or communicating with nobody but themselves.

Darragh29

Darsad wrote: »

There is no way the greens will walk they will loose most if not all their seats if there was a general election.They voted with FF to attack the elderly and young in the budget and they dont have the grass roots following that will forgive FF. They then had the stupidity to admit that they voted with the rest of the cabinet on the contensious issue of removing the medical card without knowing the proposed incom threshold.
cant go soon enough I say !!

Somewhere along the line, they are going to have to make a decision about how far they will allow the country to fall under the current government. Come next February/March, when the rate of unemployment is cruising past 11%, and Cowen still doesn't have anything to contribute other than repeating that sickening mantra, "we must wait for the global upturn, we must wait for the global upturn...", and the real bad debt that is hidden within Anglo Irish Bank starts to become apparent, with more news of shady loans that the taxpayer will have to take a hit for, more billions pumped into a bankrupt financial institution while whole hospitals are closed and the unions announce a general strike...

The Greens will pull the plug because if they don't, we're not going back to the 1980's but we'll be going back to 1913, where we'll be seeing general strikes operating on a nationwide basis and the country being brought to a standstill...

corkfella

I agree with you darragh, the scale of the problems we are facing are huge. The current government has shown no stomach for hard decisions, the obssesion with consultation with social partners will run very thin, how long before the amount on the dole equals the amount of public sector empolyees? I'm not too keen on a massive redundancy scheme in the public sector but wages will need to be serverly curtailed in order for us to get the house in order.

It annoys that some people run down the fine gael/labour option so much, this is based on purely their opinion on kenny, I know he's not great but fg/lab have some very able talented people like richard bruton, eamon gilmore, brendan howlin, joan burton and ruairi quinn, at least the labour side have some great expereince and have been in power before. compare these to the hapless ff bunch like lenihan, coughlan and cullen.

thebman

The green party are just seeing a weakened FF and letting them know they expect more of the Green Parties policies to be pushed forward this year since they are more important to FF staying in power since FF can't afford another general election because they'd be slaughtered.

I wouldn't read too much into it unless FF actually ignore Greens a little more this year than they did last year.

I hope we do have a General Election but it won't happen I don't think

CtrlSource

brim4brim wrote: »

I wouldn't read too much into it unless FF actually ignore Greens a little more this year than they did last year.

I hope we do have a General Election but it won't happen I don't think

Agreed. It's hard to see an election as a certainty this coming year, but the Greens need to reposition themselves as a more hardline partner in government (if you'll excuse the expression) so that they don't alienate their base any more. It's all politics at the end of the day and nobody seems to have solutions to the recession.

We're going to have to wait to see what happens to the world economy after Q1 and pay close attention to our economy's reaction to that in Q2 & 3.

If things continue to nose dive, people will start baying for political blood. And do it loudly

Mr.Micro

The Greens yesterday bluntly warned him they are capable of walking out of Government.

That's the beer talking.

bmaxi

The Greens are on a hiding to nothing. The best thing they can hope for, and this could be their strategy, they pull out of Government and the electorate are forgiving of them for getting rid of Cowen & Co.
Risky tactics admittedly but what have they got to lose? The party will be wiped off the political map at the local and Euro elections in June, it could take a generation or more to recover, if ever.

Mossyfields

OK the greens are making a bit of noise now, but their ministers have been more FF like, than the FF ministers themselves. The green ministers have defended this government performance even better than several of the FF team. Brian Cowan's biggest mistake has been his choice of FF ministers... , as mentioned above there are 3 particularly weak FF members of the cabinet , they just aint up to the job.
I believe the current crises is being underestimated. We may need a national government to get us out of this one, hard decisions need to be made and some public sector employees will have to take a pay cut.

RiverWilde

Cracks eh? Who's got the cro-bar?

Riv

Mr.Micro

I think about this time last year the Greens were making noises about Bertie regarding revelations at the Mahon tribunal, but that's all they did, make noises. They will cling to power with Biffo, who IMO is proving to be a dud and several of the cabinet, who I had hopes were going to be good Ministers. Sadly disappointed.

Stroke Politics

The Fianna Glas boys will sling their hook after June for the following reasons:

- disastrous 09 Locals will leave them with very few representatives
- Mahon will be published implicating Bertie and his fellow travellers
- and most importantly, the Greens will have been in power for 2 years, thus entitling them to MINISTERIAL PENSIONS. Sure, aren't they learning from the best of 'em?

allthedoyles

Do we have an alternative to this coalition ?

I don't think so

Sand

I am always amazed with the frequency with which the sins of Fianna Fail are pinned to whatever junior party they are in coalition with. PDs got blamed for Fianna Fail last election. Its looking increasingly likely the Greens will be blamed for Fianna Fail in the next election.

When is the penny going to drop? When are people going to punish Fianna Fail?

thebman

allthedoyles wrote: »

Do we have an alternative to this coalition ?

I don't think so

Yes but you don't think they can do the job. The difference being that maybe they can do the job and you under estimate them.

I wouldn't look at Kenny himself. Look at the people behind him. They are intelligent and competent.

I don't think much of Kenny himself but if he's people didn't believe in him, would they still be there?

Darsad

brim4brim wrote: »

Yes but you don't think they can do the job. The difference being that maybe they can do the job and you under estimate them.

I wouldn't look at Kenny himself. Look at the people behind him. They are intelligent and competent.

I don't think much of Kenny himself but if he's people didn't believe in him, would they still be there?

+ 1 who ever i vote for next time out I will begin from the bottom with FF and the greens and work my way up the ballot paper ensuring no possibility of a transfer !

bmaxi

allthedoyles wrote: »

Do we have an alternative to this coalition ?

I don't think so

A simplistic analogy;
You are a builder and two bricklayers apply for a job, you hire brickie A.
Brickie A builds a wall at enormous expense to you, after a while the wall falls down. On investigation you discover that all the money you've given him to invest in sand, cement, mortar etc, has in fact been used to help his mate build a wall next door.
Brickie A laughs it off and says he'll build another wall but because of inflation etc. it's going to cost even more and all the money you've given him to invest has gone into financing his mate's wall. After a while this second wall falls down and you discover that once again he has not invested in materials but has used your funds to help out his mate, whose wall has also fallen down and, not only that, has taken all the neighbouring walls with it.
Would you
(a) Give brickie A more money to rebuild all the walls?
(b) Fire brickie A and tell him never to darken your door again?
(c) Hire brickie B and see if he can do a better job?
Remember, it's your money and your choice.

jmayo

Darragh29 wrote: »

When I read "cracks" in the thread title, the first thing that came into my mind was the grand canyon. If you think about this for a minute, the government has already had it's majority bumped off by 2 due to the last budget and we know the cuts to date have been absolutely nothing compared to what is around the corner.

I don't see this government making it to Easter Sunday, I reckon we'll see a general election by then. You need a certain type of leadership team to carry a country through these sort of times, and Cowen and Coughlan are certainly not it. The way they appear to be running the cabinet is starting to sound like something straight from a KGB operation, with Cowen, Coughlan and Lenihan making decisions and consulting or communicating with nobody but themselves.

If Greens walk away causing a general election they will be crucified because their chances of getting transfers from FG/Lab will be ZERO.
Also some of their hard core supporters are disillusioned over incincerator, Tara, Shannon etc etc.

The more likely scenario is that Biffo finds a knife between the shoulder blades, it is very probable after next Euro/local elections when their luck should finally run out.

allthedoyles wrote: »

Do we have an alternative to this coalition ?

I don't think so

Why do you think this ?
Very few of the FG/Lab front bench team were in major ministeries the last time they were in and some of the TDs that were ministers were actually quiet good e.g Ruairi Quinn.
So how can you say they are bad ?
Kenny pulled the party together and but for the FFers getting the gullibles at the last election to vote them back in becuase they would keep the bubble going, he would have gotten in.
FFs best argument was that they had the experience and ability to keep the gravy train going, nice appeal to people's greed.

I can't see them using that argument next time out, can you ?

ParkRunner

From what I can remember of the Labour Party's conference, the one thing that stood out was that Gilmore not only said he wouldn't get into bed with FF, he also wouldn't get into bed with FG, which was a brave move in my opinion. An alternative Taoiseach in Kenny isn't really what the people want so it looks like the big 3 parties will be going it alone in the run up to the next election, which will hopefully be soon. Cowen should pull a Bertie and resign for the sake of Lisbon, except this time mean what he says.

Húrin

allthedoyles wrote: »

Do we have an alternative to this coalition ?

I don't think so

I see that FF propaganda is working even on those who dislike them.

Darragh29

jmayo wrote: »

Very few of the FG/Lab front bench team were in major ministeries the last time they were in and some of the TDs that were ministers were actually quiet good e.g Ruairi Quinn.
So how can you say they are bad ?
Kenny pulled the party together and but for the FFers getting the gullibles at the last election to vote them back in becuase they would keep the bubble going, he would have gotten in.
FFs best argument was that they had the experience and ability to keep the gravy train going, nice appeal to people's greed.

I can't see them using that argument next time out, can you ?

I think a lack of experience, particularly bad experience, can be a very good thing. Anyone who has been running the country in the last 10-15 years, probably has the kind of experience that we could well do without.

I'd like to see people with minimual experience but with strong vision and excellent people skills, with new ideas and drive to implement them.

Mr.Micro

Darragh29 wrote: »

I think a lack of experience, particularly bad experience, can be a very good thing. Anyone who has been running the country in the last 10-15 years, probably has the kind of experience that we could well do without.

I'd like to see people with minimual experience but with strong vision and excellent people skills, with new ideas and drive to implement them.

What we need is people with common sense and a bit of logic, not chancers that go to ground when thing get tough and were all experts in the last few years, such as most of the politicians in this country.

WoollyRedHat

I hope the government will tumble like Jenga blocks in the next 6 months. It really has been a long time coming imo.

And as for people saying it is time that Fianna Fail got comeuppance for the way they have lead this country, you're right.Fianna Fail deserve to be punished just as much as the Greens, and the Greens need to be punished for the sell-outs that they have become.

In any case, it's either the locals or never, on our verdict of whether Ff still deserve to be in power. Because if not then, when? 3 years is a long time away till the next GE.

mikemac

I don't see an election in 2009.

My prediction is FF will be slaughtered in local elections in June.
And when is Lisbon II? I think I heard October 09 somewhere. Even though FG campaigned hard for it and it should be above national politics, if it fails it's the end of Cowen.

Election in early 2010 imo but I'll admit it's just my considered guess, it can't be predicted

I have to say I'm disappointed in the GP. Pretty much sold out all their policies. I realise they are very much a junior partner and don't have that many seats but look at what the PD's achieved. Maybe they need to take a more assertive strategy

Mr.Micro

I do'nt think that the electorate akin local elections to the Government, at least not here in Ireland. IMO it will be the same old local councillors that will be elected again. The county councillors get elected on what they do for people such as helping with planning permissions, helping developers, getting someone a council house or whatever, it appears the Party that they represent has no influence most unfortunately on the voters.