Ireland: a new opportunity.
| Author | O'Mahoney, Jean |
| Position | Features |
In just three years, Ireland went from being the economic poster child of the European Union to being denounced as its albatross. Between 1990 and 2007, economic growth averaged 6.5 per cent. Since 2007, GDP has contracted by 17 per cent. In 2006, 108,000 people migrated to Ireland for work. In 2011, an estimated 60,000 will emigrate. And the banks that once financed trophy property acquisitions from Battersea to Bahrain have become the unwelcome property of the Irish taxpayer.
Ireland's spectacular fall from grace has been well-documented on financial pages across the world - the dire consequences of a massive and unsustainable property boom gone bust. Less well travelled by the international media is the political background to Ireland's transformation from Wunderkind to cautionary tale, and its consequences for Irish politics into the future.
In contrast to the decidedly mixed fortunes of other social democrats since the global financial collapse, the Irish Labour Party has gone from polling ten per cent in the last general election in 2007, to eclipsing support for the governing party, Fianna Fail. Once regarded as the perpetual half party in a two and a half party system, this year's general election was a three way contest between Labour and the two centre right parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, with the Labour Party being, for the first time in its history, in contention to lead the new government.
The growth in support for the Labour Party is related to the causes and consequences of Ireland's domestic crisis. However, we might also ask what lessons, if any, does the Irish experience offer other social democratic parties struggling to connect with electorates weary of retrenchment, but wary of debt, and angry with politics' failure to prevent the economic collapse, but equally disillusioned with its capacity to build an alternative.
The historical context
Irish politics do not cleave along class lines, making it something of an oddity in European politics. The Irish Labour Party is the oldest political party in the state, and grew out of the labour movement in the early twentieth century. However, the absence of a large industrialised working class meant that the party has never had the traditional base common to European social democratic parties. The left right divide has traditionally been a weak one; rather, it was the 'national question' that was to dominate Irish politics for most of the twentieth century.
The principal cleavage in Irish politics arose from a split in the independence movement in the 1920s between those who were in favour of an independence settlement (the 1921 Anglo Irish Treaty) that made Ireland an autonomous dominion of the British Empire, and those who were in favour of Ireland being a fully independent republic. The bitter civil war fought over this question has dominated Irish politics ever since, with one or other of the two the largest parties, (anti Treaty) Fianna Fail and (pro Treaty) Fine Gael, in power since the foundation of the state.
Of these, Fianna Fail has been the more successful, occupying the Taoiseach's (Prime Minister) office for 63 of the past 78 years. Fianna Fail is a party that would challenge even the most dedicated political taxonomist: centre right when it comes to taxation; centre left when it comes to public spending; a self styled 'national movement', which draws donors from the richest echelons of Irish society; conservative on social questions, yet unideological enough to accommodate shifts in public mores.
This catch-all, centrist nature of Ireland's biggest and most successful political party has been one of the most significant checks on the growth of the political left in Ireland. Its capacity to cannibalise the most popular policies from both the left and right posed a challenge for other political parties, if they did not want to be pushed to the unelectable fringes at either end of the spectrum.
Politics during the boom
The last time Ireland was threatened with IMF intervention was in the disastrous aftermath of an election buying spending spree by Fianna Fail between 1977 and 1981. A series of prudent decisions taken in the 1980s and 1990s, firstly by a Labour Fine Gael coalition government and subsequently by other administrations, laid the foundations for economic recovery in the mid-nineties.
In 1997, the Irish economy was healthier than it had been at any stage in its history, on the cusp of an export driven boom that was already creating 1000 jobs a week. The Labour Party had been in coalition between 1992 and 1997, first with Fianna Fail, and subsequently with Fine Gael and Democratic Left (1). In that time, Labour Party ministers had finally deregulated the sale of condoms (which had previously only been available to over 18s and could not be sold anywhere under 18s were unsupervised), decriminalised homosexuality, negotiated Ireland's lower rate of corporation tax, successfully oversaw a referendum legalising divorce, established an Irish language television station, and abolished university fees, to name but a few achievements.
However, the Rainbow Coalition of Labour, Fine Gael and Democratic Left narrowly lost the 1997 general election to Fianna Fail, which formed a new government with a junior coalition partner, the Progressive Democrats, and a mixed bag of independent TDs (MPs). In 1992 the Labour Party had been swept to victory on the back of unprecedented support, particularly among the middle classes, for its attack on political corruption and its socially liberal agenda. However, by 1997 most of that agenda had been delivered, and much of Labour's floating support, which had gathered around these issues, had ebbed away.
The next decade was to be defined by the economic neo liberalism of the Progressive Democrats (a breakaway faction of Fianna Fail that had left the party in the 1980s in protest at the corruption of its then leader, Charles Haughey). However, this philosophy was adopted enthusiastically by Fianna Fail Ministers for Finance...
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