After Fine Gael’s 15 years in Government, are the miles on the clock showing?

Good afternoon,

Fine Gael is mustering in Cork for its Ardfheis – welcoming two new members to its parliamentary party: Sean Kyne, winner of the Galway West byelection in the spring, and newly minted Senator Ray McAdam, who unsuccessfully sought to defend the Dublin Central seat vacated by Paschal Donohoe at the same time.

The party is now 15 years in Government – a long time in anyone’s book. Are the miles on the clock showing? Well, yes. In polls and election results, the party has gone downhill since 2011 when it inherited a barren economy from Fianna Fáil.

That is somewhat inevitable – governing tends to make parties more unpopular and the political landscape has been radically restructured in that time.

But it’s not all external – a report from its Commission for Renewal published this week self-diagnoses Fine Gael with a sort of drift or identity crisis.

Meanwhile, a group of grassroots activists has unsuccessfully fought a battle to get a motion in front of the Ardfheis urging it to move to the centre right, shedding its current “progressive centre” branding.

This weekend, we’ll look at recent dramas in the party, as well as the big strategic questions it faces as Tánaiste Simon Harris rounds the corner of one year out from taking over as Taoiseach again.

Mark Hennessy, Britain and Ireland editor, will also look at the party’s plans and ambitions for a unified Ireland – with Harris also set to unveil its proposals on that front.

Meanwhile, the Patrick O’Donovan saga continues to generate commentary.

Gerard Howlin’s punchy piece on the party is also a must-read this week.

Legal woes for Big Jim

Away from all things Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan had a chastening week after being handed a bruising verdict in the High Court. A Dublin solicitor had challenged the Minister for Justice’s reforms of the criminal legal aid system – and Judge Mary Rose Gearty didn’t hold back in her ruling, calling key elements “grossly unfair” and “illogical”.

It’s hard to get away from the sense that the pendulum in the Minister’s long battle with the solicitors swung in the lawyers’ favour this week. The whole enterprise of reforming the system hasn’t collapsed, but while the politics seemed to be favourable for O’Callaghan for a long time, it suddenly doesn’t look so straightforward.

The impetus will now be to try to draw a line under it, you’d have to think. But the manner of doing so will count for much when it comes to a political accounting of how effective the Dublin Bay South TD’s sally-forth against the solicitors was.

USA, USA, USA

Democrats across the US – including in some previously ruby-red states – will still be giddy this weekend as the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s terms starts to take shape. Considered as a political energy, Maga and Trumpism has been billed as one of the most transformative and consequential events in recent US history. As a system of government, it has been, as Brian Kerr might say, malojin. The voters have passed their verdict, but what comes next?

Here’s Harry McGee during the week on what it might mean for official Ireland.

And tomorrow, Washington Correspondent Keith Duggan writes: “A deafening electoral roar swept from coast to coast with the speed of a prairie fire this week, but can the Democrats’ decisive win put America’s ghosts to rest?”. This is to be the cover feature in our Weekend Review section.

In the meantime, here’s what Diarmaid Ferriter had to say on the results.

Trackie tops and tapping up

We’re not quite at the high water mark of flip flops and “who are you loyal to”, but RTÉ’s latest joust in a seemingly never-ending series of engagements with Oireachtas committees still had its moments.

Not least – and almost casually slipped in – the nugget that the broadcaster will be looking for another €780 million in publicly guaranteed funding before the end of the decade.

Here’s Orla Ryan’s write up.

Other goings-on...

Unionism splinters again as Carla Lockhart quits the Democratic Unionist Party.

The triple lock debate trundles on.

But it’s the weekend, so indulge in some great food writing.

Hear here: find the week’s Inside Politics podcasts here.

Have a great weekend.