Message from the Editor: Fine Gael’s nervous introspection

The decline of the duopoly that ran Ireland for almost a century has left Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in a permanent state of nervous introspection. After 15 consecutive years in power, the sense of drift is more acute these days for the junior coalition partner, Fine Gael. Its support has halved since 2011 and the popularity of its leader, Simon Harris, is in decline. Where once the answer to the question ‘what is Fine Gael for’ came down to not being Fianna Fáil, the two parties’ largely frictionless cohabitation in Government Buildings has intensified the existential questions.

At its ardfheis in University College Cork this weekend, Fine Gael has been considering a renewal document intended to chart a way back. Its authors have reduced the question of what Fine Gael stands for to two words: stability and reform. As our editorial argues, “that raises more questions than it answers – this is the party of change, it seems to argue, but also of no-change – and risks sounding exactly like the technocratic blandness some critics blame for the party’s difficulties.”

Some in the party see an opportunity in a renewed emphasis on traditional principles of fiscal discipline, personal responsibility and a more limited role for the State. A motion along those lines did not make it onto the agenda, despite Harris reportedly wanting it debated, but the same themes came through in Harris’s televised speech on Saturday, when he called for penalties for those who treat the dole as “a way of life”. The speech was full of passages that acted as unsubtle nods to Fine Gael’s centre-right heartland, but as Pat Leahy writes, what a politician says and what he or she does are not always the same.

“Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar also talked about supporting the people who get up early, etc, and cracking down on welfare cheats,” Leahy writes. “But Varadkar discovered that doing tough centre-right things, such as prioritising tax cuts over increases in public spending, involves decisions that are unpopular with a lot of people.”

Assessing Fine Gael’s prospects of resolving its identity crisis, Jack Horgan-Jones spoke to people at different levels in the party and found widespread acknowledgement that a long period in office can blunt a party’s edge. Harris’s position is strengthened by the presence of so many inexperienced first-time TDs in the ranks. “TDs swear blind – even privately – that they are behind Harris. But nothing is static in politics,” Horgan-Jones writes.

The results of the US midterm elections, which gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress, will change the dynamic of US politics for the remaining two years of the Trump presidency. Keith Duggan crossed the country over the past year, giving us a rich, textured view on a place outsiders tend to understand less than they think they do. His in-depth look at the election results and the future they suggest is well worth a read.

For Dan Geary in Opinion, meanwhile, what we’re hearing is the death knell for the Trump era.

There is a big presidential election taking place closer to home next year, with French voters due to go to the polls to choose Emmanuel Macron’s successor in April. Naomi O’Leary, who has been covering the campaign for us from Paris, looks at the latest name to be linked to the vacancy: that of Christine Lagarde. The former finance minister announced last week that she would soon step down as head of the European Central Bank. Her only electoral experience is her 2008 campaign to become a municipal councillor in Paris’s 12th arrondissement, but the idea that she might enter the presidential campaign is being taken seriously, not least among centrists who have struggled to find a candidate who excites voters. Pollsters have not yet tested how Lagarde might fare as a presidential candidate, O’Leary writes, but a long-running survey by Ifop suggests she is one of the most popular public figures in France.

The presence of sanctioned oil tankers in Irish-controlled waters has been a running story for the past few years. These ships are part of the so-called shadow fleet, used to transport sanctioned Russian oil, and we have previously reported significant concerns about their safety and the potential environmental damage that any spill could bring.

The scale of the problem is clarified in a new investigation by Conor Gallagher and Rachel Lavin this week. Using satellite data provided by Starboard Marine Intelligence, Gallagher and Lavin recorded 218 shadow fleet vessels passing through Ireland’s exclusive economic zone so far this year, some of them making multiple transits. Of the 218 oil tankers, 208 were under EU sanctions at the time of their passage, while the remainder were under sanctions imposed by the US, UK or New Zealand.

By checking safety records, we found that of the 218 ships, 72 per cent had major safety or pollution-control issues on their last inspection. The vessels are typically registered in developing countries with poor or non-existent inspection regimes and their crews often lack adequate training.

An extraordinary row over staffing and resourcing at Cork University Hospital has taken on new dimensions with the discovery of a recording, obtained by The Irish Times, that casts new light on a purported conversation between a senior HSE official and Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Shauna Bowers and Martin Wall have the story.

One of RTÉ’s longest-running soap operas is the one that centres on its own interactions with Oireachtas committees. The latest was about a sports podcast, of all things. This is of dubious national significance, but it is certainly important to people who work in RTÉ. Gavin Cooney and Malachy Clerkin spoke to more than a dozen people in the State-funded broadcaster about the fallout from the Howler controversy. The resulting piece paints a revealing portrait of the mood at the company.

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