Tag: Government formation

After this crisis, the familiar ones will still be there

by dsmooney, posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Colum Eastwood, EU, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Green party, Northern Ireland, Scotland

Screenshot (52)As you will see from the opening paragraph below I wrote this column, which appeared on Broadsheet.ie on June 8th, assuming that the three parties would have produced some form of Programme for Government (PfG) – even if it was not one to which all the negotiators (i.e. not all the Green party ones) felt they could sign up..

As we see today (Friday 12th) yet another deadline has slipped in a process that full of missed deadlines and makes Bismarck’s sausage factory look like a place of beauty and efficiency. We also see today via a Michael Gove Tweet that the UK does not want a sensible transition extension and so the Tories are determined to have a hard UK Brexit crash out at year’s end.

Tempting though it is to present you today with yet another analysis piece about the government formation process, I will resist.

My reasons are twofold:

  1. There is a 50/50 chance the process will still be ongoing this time next week
  2. We are in such a state of flux with events moving faster than ever, there is every chance that the facts underpinning any analysis could change while I write it up.

OK, reason one is a bit flippant. I would be extremely surprised if an agreed document, though not necessarily one agreed by everyone, has not emerged by week’s end.

The second reason remains rock solid.

The one thing I can say with any certainty today is that there are so many moving parts and shifting gears that no one outcome, or series of outcomes, is certain.

Continue reading “After this crisis, the familiar ones will still be there” →

Green Party may not be ready for govt, but its members are not so politically green #govtformation

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Green party, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Politics

This column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on May 25th, 2020 about two weeks before Catherine Martin confirmed that she would challenge Éamon Ryan in the upcoming Green Party leadership contest. While events since this column was published confirm that the Green party is not now ready, willing or able to serve in government, they also highlight the depth and intensity of the schism within that party between the fundis (i.e. purists) and the realos (pragmatists).    

If, on the night of the election count, you had been asked to bet on which of the three leaders, of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Greens, would face a leadership challenge first, I very much doubt many would have their money on Éamon Ryan.

Why would they? As the counting of ballots ended Ryan was the only one of the three with anything to celebrate. While Martin and Varadkar were trying to explain away seat losses, Ryan was almost iridescent as he watched the ranks of his Dáil party swell from just two TDs to twelve.

Ryan was not just a successful leader, he was the Green’s most successful ever leader in its almost 40-year history, winning twice as many seats as had been won under Trevor Sargent in 2002 or 2007.  

It was the leadership careers of Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin which seemed to be hanging delicately in the balance that week.

Maybe it is an indication of how much politics has changed in recent months that both Varadkar and Martin seem relatively (though not equally) secure in their positions, while it is Ryan who could well be struggling for political survival.

Continue reading “Green Party may not be ready for govt, but its members are not so politically green #govtformation” →

Who thinks the #govtformation process is a recipe for success? Not normal people, that’s for sure

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Green party, Politics, Tanaiste, Taoiseach

This column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on May 18th. While it primarily deals with the ongoing Irish government formation process, it also focuses on the public row that had been rumbling between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and culminating in the petulant press Fine Gael statement saying that the talks process was now damaged… damage that seemed to disappear quickly just one day later. So is this process going to result in a three party, but four way coalition*? I still doubt it very much

(* i.e. the three parties: Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Green Party plus groups of regional and/or rural independent T.D.s)

As I opened last week’s column talking about how virtual quizzes have helped make this lockdown easier to bear, it’s only fair that I give TV a bit of credit.

Not just TV in general, even though it has helped a lot. I am thinking of one new TV drama series in particular. You know it. Whether you follow it in weekly instalments on RTE, or binge watch it online, it has garnered an enormous amount of attention, stretching well beyond its normal time slot. It has given radio phone-in shows across the country plenty to talk and argue about.

Some say it captures the beauty and brutality of courtship and rejection with compassion and feeling. They point to the how the slow, methodical progression of the will they, won’t they narrative hesitantly gives way to the uneasy tensions of the first fumblings of intimacy. The on screen appearance of a few limp dicks has set folks on to social media to rant about a loss of values, nonetheless it has still been the landmark lock-down drama.

But enough about the government formation process, hasn’t Normal People been a great watch too?

Continue reading “Who thinks the #govtformation process is a recipe for success? Not normal people, that’s for sure” →

Who Gets The Finance Minister?

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Green party, Paschal Donohoe, Politics

This Broadsheet column was posted on Monday April 27 and once again looked at…. yes, you guessed it… the ongoing issue of government formation and the options facing Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party and the different groupings of regional and rural independent T.D.s. In this piece, I look at what has been happening is Israel and suggest that we should look at the issues and questions that arise from what they have decided to do, particularly a shorter government term and see if they have relevance here. 

Min-Donohoe_MoSs
Pic via http://paschaldonohoe.ie/gallery/

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the only place to have a rotating Prime Minister-ship is Israel. That was back in the mid 1980’s. It was part of national unity government agreement – a government that had the backing of 97 of the 120 Knesset members.

It looks like Israel is about to give the rotating premiership model another run with current PM Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz agreeing a three-year coalition deal that will see Netanyahu getting the first 18-month rotation and Gantz the second.

Interestingly, the two men who challenged each other in three parliamentary elections over 11 months, have also agreed to rotate the positions of foreign minister, energy minister and environmental protection minister after 18 months.

I know there are many here who would rather stick pins in their eyes than take heed what happens in Israel, but it does highlight some government formation issues which we should also consider.

The first is something I have raised here many times, specifically why are some political leaders so absolutely consumed with putting a 5-year government with a fixed 5-year programme in place right now? Ignoring the fact that we have already used three months out of that 5-year timeframe, should we really be trying to set in stone the policies for a government post 2022?

Continue reading “Who Gets The Finance Minister?” →

Sherlock Martin and Dr Varadkar and the case of the missing third party… #governmentformation #ge2020

by dsmooney, posted in Cyber security, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Politics, Sinn Féin

This Broadsheet column was written last Sunday aand appeared online on Monday morning (April 20th 2020) under the headline:  They should be in it together

GE2020 posters

In 1945, just as the Second World War was ending, Britain faced a general election. Would post-war Britain be shaped by the Conservatives under Winston Churchill or by Clement Attlee’s Labour Party, a partner in the war time unity government.

The choice was clear, but the voters had no doubt who they wanted. They resoundingly rejected Churchill, the man who had led Britain to a victory that had sometimes seemed uncertain and opted instead for Attlee, the understated but progressive social reformer.

While historians offer several reasons for Churchill’s defeat, it boils down to voters seeing that a good wartime leader is not necessarily a good peace time leader. The skills (and policies) required to lead a country through a time of crisis and external threat are not the ones you need when you are trying to rebuild after that crisis. And vice-versa.

Continue reading “Sherlock Martin and Dr Varadkar and the case of the missing third party… #governmentformation #ge2020” →