Eight years ago, in the run up to the 2007 general election, I recall a conversation with a thrusting young Soldier of Destiny. An unkind soul might suggest that this young man was a trifle arrogant. The party had been in power for a decade at this point. A general sense of unease was creeping in. A worry that the electorate might have simply grown weary of looking at them. That they might go for change just for the sake of it. There were also those uncomfortable questions emerging around Bertie Ahern’s finances. I wondered what kind of a response they were getting on the doorsteps.
My man from Fianna Fáil was breezily upbeat about his party’s political fortunes. ‘You’ll always get people who will want to have a go at you,’ he acknowledged, ‘but as long as I am hitting my target of a thumbs up from four out of ten doors, I know we’re grand.’ And indeed Fianna Fáil had been getting around 40% of the vote for so long that it almost seemed like the party’s birthright. In 2007, of course, the news that that our world was about to collapse around our ears had not yet emerged. Fianna Fáil was duly re-elected, winning 77 seats with 41.6% of the vote.
As delegates gathered in the RDS for the party’s 76th Ard Fheis, there was an air of deflated optimism about the place. Like an aging showgirl who still persists in hitting the hotel bar in full make-up and faded feathers, the party was still telling anyone who would listen about its glory days, all the while desperately trying to sing a new tune.
Of course the nerves were in flitters. The latest Sunday Business Post Red Sea Poll was due out just a couple of hours before Micheál Martin would have to deliver his leader’s speech. With the mid-term gains Martin had made now looking like a mirage, and the party back at the paltry support levels achieved in the last general election, any further slippage could make Martin’s position untenable. As it happened, the poll brought mixed blessings. Fianna Fáil support increased. Okay, the increase was just one percentage point. But it was an increase. Less welcome in the RDS was the news that Sinn Fein had surged ahead by 5 points.
No surprise, then, that Sinn Fein featured heavily in dispatches throughout the day. Cllr Jack Chambers, the party’s great white hope in Dublin West, got a tumultuous response when he declared that when he hears Sinn Fein lecturing Fianna Fáil about legacy issues ‘I get a sick feeling in my stomach.’ Michael Martin received lengthy standing ovation when he declared: ‘The Provisionals remain a movement which covers up the sickest of crimes in order to protect their members. We will never allow then to rewrite Irish history to legitimise their despicable crimes.’ He had earlier reminded delegates of Fianna Fáil’s republican position that ‘a single state, uniting us all, would unleash tremendous economic and social progress on this island.’
There were a fair few goodies thrown into the mix. Promises to abolish Irish Water, to cut the hated Universal Social Charge, to increase mortgage interest relief, to introduce an extra free pre-school year and offer child care tax credits. And of course Micheál Martin had a right go at the Government parties for attempting to buy its way back into power.
Former Minister Michael Woods proudly introduced us to his grandson, an eminently presentable young man who had a trophy for debating under his oxter and had spent the weekend campaigning for a yes vote in the forthcoming referendum on marriage equality. There was a fair smattering of eager twenty-somethings like him dotted among the delegates. But the vast majority of the delegates were considerably closer to his grandfather’s age profile. Indeed one of the most striking features of the Ard Fheis was the curious absence of delegates aged between 30 and 60.
This is Fianna Fail’s lost generation. Its slew of family-friendly promises is a naked bid to coax these disillusioned voters back to the fold - and away from the siren call of Sinn Fein.
We are in election mode, folks. Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Prime Time Political Correspondent, Katie Hannon
