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COALITION GOVERNMENTS CAN sometimes seem like abusive marriages, with the smaller partner locked into a damaging relationship that it is seemingly unable to leave.
The Fine Gael-Labour coalition has begun to look a bit like this in recent months. Labour has been hurt in recent tussles between the two, most notably the events surrounding the resignation of Róisín Shorthall. If recent opinion polls are anything to go by, Labour also seems to be taking much of the flak for unpopular decisions the government has made. This raises the question: is government always bad for the health of the junior coalition partner?
Examples of small parties faring badly in government are easy to come by. The PDs were nearly wiped-out in 2007 following a long period in government with Fianna Fáil, and later disbanded as a political party. The Greens lost all six of their representatives in the Dáil following their sole stint in government. Looking across the water, support for the Liberal Democrats plummeted when they reneged on some key election promises soon after entering into government with the Conservatives.
A lot depends on the circumstances in which the coalition is formed, and in particular whether or not the junior coalition partner can protect itself with a strong programme for government (a kind of pre-nuptial agreement). The PDs in 2002 were in a weak bargaining position, as Fianna Fáil had other options to fall back on; so too were the Greens in 2007. In such circumstances, a small party is unlikely to be able to dictate the terms of the programme for government and can expect to have little impact once the government term gets underway. However, a small party can find itself in the position of kingmaker in the negotiations following an election, being essential to all of the alternative coalitions that could realistically form. It can then play hard-ball during the negotiations and secure key ministerial posts and important policy concessions in the ensuing deal.
A good example of this is the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition formed in 1997. The PDs were in a strong negotiating position, as Fianna Fáil had no realistic alternative partner (Labour had ruled out such a partnership before the election). Despite having only four TDs, they secured the position of Tánaiste and two junior ministries and succeeded in implementing many of their key election promises. They were rewarded in the next election with a doubling of their seats.
Indeed, the evidence internationally suggests that small parties should have nothing to fear from entering into government. Small parties in government tend to get marginally more ministerial positions than they would if it was determined by size alone. Studies also suggest that small parties often punch above their weight when it comes to getting their election pledges into the programme for government. Furthermore, while all parties tend to lose some votes following a period in office (due to the unpopular decisions they must inevitably make), it is the party of the Prime Minister that typically sees the greatest decline in its vote share.
In this light, it is something of a puzzle as to why Labour has not done better this time out. On the face of it, it would seem that they were in a strong bargaining position after the last election. Fine Gael desperately wanted a coalition with Labour, as the alternatives (Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin) were unpalatable. Labour, in contrast, would have very likely benefited from a period as the largest party in opposition during a time of severe cut-backs, and so should only have been tempted to enter a coalition under their terms.
As it played out, Labour leaders did not play their hand particularly well. They seemed over-eager to enter government (perhaps with noble intentions of helping to get the country back on track) and as a result did not strike a particularly good deal. The division of ministerial posts was proportional to the size of the two parties (with Fine Gael getting 10 ministers, Labour 5) and the agreed programme for government was noticeably vague on detail. This means that Fine Gael now have greater scope to determine government policy: they hold the majority of cabinet seats, and are not constrained by a detailed list of commitments in the programme for government.
However, Labour’s current unpopularity cannot just be attributed to a poor coalition deal. Implementing an austerity programme is politically more damaging for a left-wing party like Labour (a long-term advocate for strong social welfare and public spending) than it is for Fine Gael. More deep cuts to public spending will be announced in the upcoming budget and Labour’s poll ratings will most likely continue to slide. Whatever their reasons were for going into government, it would appear to have been the wrong decision for the long term health of the party.
Rory Costello is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick, specialising in EU politics and political representation.
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Haloween and St Patricks Day – two great days we exported. Not bad for a little rock in the Atlantic.
@Paul P O’Sullivan: Thats not all! What about kn#cker drinking, Clancy Fuel Merchant GAA jerseys, the requirement for subtitles for people talking in English on Bondi Rescue, Frosted Lucky Charms, clapping on Airplanes, the list goes on
@Paul P O’Sullivan: Patricks day we can claim, though we are not the country who celebrate it the most.
Halloween may have been originally Irish, but the way we celebrate it has nothing to do with Ireland. And most people think it is an American holiday, which is not entirely untrue. Witches, dressing up, trick or treating are all American. There is no Irish part to it.
The saddest part is that if you want to celebrate either properly you go abroad.
@Andy K: Why would you have to go abroad to ‘celebrate them properly’? Don’t quite understand what you mean by that.
@O Swetenham: because Bonfires are now illegal. Because Catholicism equated anything not for their God as a Sin.
@Shannon Mcg: so no bonfires and Catholicism are the reason we can’t celebrate Halloween and St Patrick’s day, and have to venture abroad to experience them “properly”? Sorry, but that makes no sense.
@O Swetenham: Bonfires are a TRADITIONAL SAMHAIN celebration that was to represent bringing light back to the dark times, to give power back to the sun, to light the way for souls that were lost. With the ban on bonfires, that means a traditional celebration is now illegal here.
Catholicism made Halloween/Samhain into a watered down holiday. Originally, you would do Divination and leave offerings to Spirits but that was considered Witchcraft and was outlawed under Catholic rule.
I never mentioned Paddys day.
@Andy K: No country celebrates Patrick’s day more than ireland, certainly not per head. Halloween has Celtic/Christian origins, you learn something new everyday. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
@Andy K:
Off you go so, we’ll definitely miss you.
We, along with Scottish exiles, exported a custom that is now practised by children of all ethnic backgrounds in North America (don’t forget Canada – but the Eskimos don’t do Halloween.) However, in Ireland today many children, abetted by parents, imitate American echoes instead of adhering to the púca origins. The same pickup on American echoes has been happening with St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish-Americans invented the Patrick’s Day parade in order to assert themselves against racial denigration; but nowadays it’s developed into razzmatazz showbiz, funny paddyhats, painted faces and exaggerated pre patrician ‘celtic’ mythological creatures dragged laboriously through main streets. There is a cultural forgetting and a slavish imitation of American kultur. It is found in many other aspects of Irish life today – speech, dress, popular music, attitudes to traditional beliefs, television and literary references. The words of Polonius to his departing son Laertes are worth quoting:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
Hamlet 1:3
@Garreth Byrne: If we are to follow your advice (and to our own selves be true), can you kindly outline what version of Ireland and its culture you feel is appropriate? People and cultures evolve.
@Olllie B: I’m in a dressing gown at the moment. As soon as I get dressed it’s a good walk for me. Enjoy this autumnal day. Read Keats’s poem, To Autumn.
@Garreth Byrne:
The day it went full Americano was when – “help the Halloween party” was finally replaced with “Trick or treat”
Next thing you know we’ll be giving out candy instead of sweets. And don’t try handing out fruit or nuts to kids now days they’ll look at you as if you have 10 bleedin heads.
@Honeybadger197: Cultures evolve, yes. Cultures also degrade. Cultures disappear and are replaced. I’ll let you try to work out what kind of Ireland and what kind of culture is ‘appropriate’. Maybe another thread, after we’ve enjoyed the Bank Holiday.
@Garreth Byrne: love that Hamlet quote at the end. Great comment too.
First world complaint.
@John Michalski: Should we let our traditions and culture die?
@Mary Murphy: Depends on whether they’re good or bad.
@Mary Murphy: Our traditions and culture? What part that is left is Irish? The holiday is purely American culture and tradition. Just like your christmas dinner.
@Andy K: Yes it has become Americanised (you called it a holiday????), but unless people like the author if this piece stand up we will completely lose our identity and traditions. I for one hope that Starbucks and McDonald’s don’t take over the world.
@Mary Murphy: Already have
@John Michalski: actually a third world complaint about becoming a first world cultural change. Like Irish, there is no implicit need for Halloween or st Patrick’s (unlike music and dancing), so it has to evolve to it’s current commercial state (like the Dutch Santa) to become popular.
@Gary Mason: not my world. I still eat and drink local food wherever I go. I will support local industries and jobs and do everything I can to keep them going.
Complete horse … Who is the editor on this site ???
@Paul Maher: ahh Paul, why the long face?
@Paul Maher: I agree. What’s wrong with a young boy dressing up as superman instead of a skeleton, or a girl dressing up as a princess instead of a witch, if that’s what they want to do and so long as they have fun doing it? Author here sounds like a miserable you know what to me. Would he really refuse to let one of his own girls dress up like that if that’s what her friends were doing and what she wanted to do too?
@Paul Maher: the editor is cholly appleseed
@Michael Geraghty: Id reply if yours wasn’t an alias …
@Jumperoo: yes, because we couldn’t possibly prevent and deny the precious little ones from getting and doing what THEY want all of the time, everything and everyone else be damned.
@☘️: are you the author, or just answering the question? Either way, I’m not talking about letting them do absolutely everything they want, absolutely all the time. I’m just asking what’s wrong in letting them choose their own costume for a bit of dress up fun. As for everything and everyone else be damned – does that not also work the other way? I.E. you (author?) Say child and child’s choice of costume be damned, and you (author?) tell them the only kind of costume they can wear instead?
@Jumperoo: Didn’t read the article because it’s not newsworthy .
No it wouldn’t have died out here
@Dermot Lane: Care to back up your point with some examples and facts? Lúnasa celebrations, the Wren Day traditions for Stephens Day and various other customs mostly died out. What makes you think Halloween would have been so durable?
Has always been strong in West of Ireland and the country treats Samhain as a national holiday with kids off school. They don’t get that in America! The old Jack O’Lanterns that you can see in Turlough House country museum in Castlebar carved out of turnips are a lot scarier than the American pumpkins. But pumpkins are easier carve. The American Halloween has not changed all that much.
TBH I don’t know most kids that know at my door, not because how they are dressed but because they don’t live in my estate. There are rich pickings to be had so parents drive their kids/teens come from far and wide to take advantage. Once our estate is hit, they move on to the next one.
@Lily:
Don’t be such a misery. Welcome all the kids no matter where they might come from.
If Hallowe’en had not survived me for one would have gave 0 FuKCs
It is perhaps because we do not get weather extreme as a normal part of the seasons that the swings in daylight and darkness throughout the year has more relevance for us than the States where their seasons are built around weather. With Easter dates varying from year to year, St Patrick’s day was closest to the Equinox and cultures have eventually adopted it as a Spring festival. Our body clock registers February as the beginning of Spring and a really tangible feel for more daylight just as we now experience nature shutting down for the dormant period of winter (Samhain/November). Behind all the masks and traditions are the necessary adjustments we make or suffer the consequences as known through seasonal affective disorder or the body’s response in the same way our bodies respond to the daily wake/sleep cycle.
Many of these folklore types are miseries. What is wrong with kids dressing up they way they want to and enjoying themselves? They are actually honouring this old tradition their way, which is the way it should be and is essential if these traditions are to progress.
Maybe the writer would prefer if they wore rags and had holes in their shoes, or no shoes at all as in the past.
What utter nonsense. Halloween is ours and always has been. Our new year begins tomorrow, enjoy. Halloween has been around forever, the USA just a few hundred years, this writer needs to get some perspective.
Great article. We are buying back our own mangled custom from America. Our should protect our cultural heritage better than that.
What a cranky crappy article
It would have survived look at Irelands Own, it would have been a sub culture except for the tricks and fireworks?
Great time of year for flashers and criminals
@Johnny Hihats: Absolutely!! I wouldn’t answer the door to an adult in disguise mask and all!!
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