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Six months ago, I stated on this site that we would know within nine months whether Fianna Fáil had a future in Irish politics. I think, six months in, that the answer is clear: it doesn't. That does not mean it will die soon or quickly. It may limp on for years. But I don't see it coming back.
Before Oggy appears foaming at the mouth with fury, let me say that I don't say that lightly. I am a historian and political scientist by training, and a journalist by career. In political science, parties rarely die. But equally, parties that suffer the scale of collapse experienced by Fianna Fáil rarely come back: for example, the Radicals in France, the Christian Democrats in Italy, the Royalists in France. The Tories in Canada needed in effect to create a new party with someone else to survive. On a scale of wipeout where 1 is minor and 10 is fatal, FF's 2011 election result was a 9.
Some personal declarations here: I am not a member of Fianna Fáil nor have I ever supported it. But I am not one of those who hates parties or people. So I am not wishing ill on the party. I have in my lifetime supported two parties, Fine Gael and the Greens. I used to be a member of Fine Gael, so I know how parties work from the inside.
A key thing to remember is that Fianna Fáil's decline is not new. It has been in decline since the early 1990s. The worst general election result in percentage terms before 2011 was in 1992, when under Albert Reynolds it got 39%. Yes I know Oggy that it was closer to 40%, something like 39.7%. But it was the 39% bit that matters. It devastated FF because it categorised it as a 'thirty-something party', something it had never been at any general election in living memory.
The media and the party focused on the fact that in 1997 it got a substantial increase in seats. It did, but on exactly the same percentage vote - it simply was more strategic in picking candidates. At its height in a general election in the Celtic Tiger, FF was only 3% higher than Reynold's notorious result of 1992. The two worst leaders in terms of general elections were Reynolds, then Ahern, and if Cowen had led the party into an election, the three worst percentages would have been achieved by the three most recent leaders.
The organisation, that under Blaney in the 1960s and Brennan in the 1970s, by the last 15 minutes has been in a state of collapse. TDs talked of places having rival cumainn, of candidates fighting (literally - one hired someone to follow his opponent to report on who in the organisation he was meeting!), of an aging grassroots, of an Ógra full (with some exceptions) of cynical, power-hungry individuals, and despaired.
A key problem for FF right now is both the size and quality of its TDs. There are some people of ability, but the majority of the TDs are mediocre non-entities. All parties have them, but when the going gets tough you need a hard core of talent with experience. FF hasn't that hard core - it says something when the only experienced people with any talent are the likes of Willie O'Dea and Éamon Ó Cuiv, who are very much minor talents. A party that once had Seán Lemass, Paddy Hillery and Frank Aiken, that produced people like Seamus Brennan, Des O'Malley and Charlie Haughey (a crook, yes, but a talented crook!) now is relying on survival on O'Dea, Ó Cuiv, and the likes of Seamus Kirk!!!
You need a minimum number of TDs to function in the big league. In 2002 Fine Gael suffered a disastrous wipeout, and struggled to function with only 31 TDs and 3 in Dublin. FF has 19, and none in Dublin.
You also need resources. FF is broke, heavily in debt and has nothing it can sell or mortgage to raise money - it sold its HQ years ago and now uses rented offices, so it cannot get a mortgage to fund the basic things it needs (staff, back-up, etc). Yes parties fundraise during each year. Fine Gael, for example, is largely funded by a spectacularly successful draw that raises over a million - it is regarded internationally as one of the most successful draws created by a party anywhere, and parties internationally have tried to replicate it. But income like that comes in yearly and fluctuates. Parties need a clear income level longterm, so the normal technique is that parties mortgage their HQ after an election, then use that money to budget for the next five years, with income during the five years then used to pay off the mortgage. You cannot function year to year by being able to afford a press officer through fundraising one year, having to lay them off the next because that year's fundraising was lower, then hiring someone the next year, etc. But FF has no resources to do that budgeting, so it has had to lay off vital staff.
It also has a problem with its leader - FG was very lucky with Enda Kenny. Kenny may not have been great in the media sometimes, but he was a brilliant organiser. At a time when they needed their organisation to be rebuilt after 2002, they happened to have probably the best organiser in Irish politics as leader. Martin, even his friends admit, is not a great organisation man, is indecisive, as unsure judgement, and is notorious for his Hamlet-like ability to delay and handwring. But they have no alternative among the PP.
So FF's problems aren't new or a result of the Celtic Tiger screw-ups they made. They have been developing for decades. One of the most interesting indications of how things stand for the party occurred with the aborted Gay Byrne nomination for the presidency. The media and some here thought Byrne's 28% in the PP poll was good. It wasn't. It was pathetic. Byrne is one of the most prominent people in Irish life. He should have come in up to 20% higher. So why didn't he? The widespread belief is that he only got 28% because it was FF that approached him (or rather Martin). In other words, that FF are so toxic that even someone with the name recognition of Byrne was damaged by mere association with them. If he could lose from a third to a half of his support the minute he was linked to FF, no wonder Tom Lenihan won't run for them. They are completely toxic.
Of course, it would take a lot longer than 6 months to overcome the Celtic Tiger toxicity. But it should have begun to decline to some extent by now. FF could have expected by June to be back above 20% in polls. They aren't. They are static.
So you have a party that remains toxic, has been in longterm decline for decades, with a weak PP and a weak leader, heavily in debt, no adequate backroom staff, a collapsing cumann structure (in which reports warning of the need to fix them went unheaded for years). And they face a government which surprisingly is remaining popular, and a hungry young Sinn Féin snapping at its heels.
So my view is that FF is dying. It is too weak and faces too many problems to return to dominance. At best it may limp on as a teen to twenties seat party. But ultimately I wonder whether its supporters, who joined a party of government, would remain with a party that is no longer in the running to head governments, but merely prop them up. So I think it will limp on until after the next general election, and then gradually fade away as its TDs jump ship to other parties where they would have a possibility of power. Small ideological parties can remain on the fringes for decades, motivated by ideology and not missing power. But FF is a power-elite party, and it may find its TDs and supporters not willing to wait forever in a party that is powerless. FG in the 1990s and 2000s was big enough to have the belief that power was still achievable with one good election result. But FF is so far back it would take at least 2 elections to even get within an ass's roar of being able to lead a government. And I cannot see its grassroots and its TDs waiting that long.
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Originally Posted by TommyO'Brien
