DURING A TESTY interview with Newstalk late last night Taoiseach Enda Kenny repeatedly said that the government had heard the message of the electorate “loud and clear”.
But why has it taken so long to hear that message given that many of the issues facing canvassers on doorsteps nationwide over the last few weeks have been well flagged for, in some cases, years?
For example, TDs up and down the country have been hearing and telling the Dáil about some of the most awful cases of medical cards being taken from very sick children and adults for well over a year.
Certain deputies have also been talking about homelessness and housing shortages across the country since 2011, a crisis that has taken root in the aftermath of the economic collapse despite the building boom during the Celtic Tiger years.
Even the garda whistleblowers – whose mishandling by Alan Shatter had been an issue on the doorsteps – tried to get their voices heard for two years at least before the government finally took swift action in recent months.
Yet despite all this, it’s only now that the government gets it, that voters are angry, real angry. It appears nothing does more to spring ministers into action than a wallop at the ballot box and in both Fine Gael and particularly Labour’s case that’s what’s happened this weekend.
Leo Varadkar, never a minister who is lost for words, probably said it best: “They’ve sent the message that they’re hurting and that they’re not happy with a lot of the things the government has done.”
The question now is what can the government to do stop its support from falling further?
For a start pulling out of government does nothing for a battered Labour Party which must deal with its own internal issues in the coming days and weeks.
Chief among them is the future of party leader Eamon Gilmore who once again found himself the subject of a less than ringing endorsement from his deputy leader Joan Burton yesterday.
The Social Protection Minister has confidence in Gilmore but in terms of discussing the leadership she said she was “not going to call anything like that until we get the results in”. What happens when those results do come in as they will over the next day or so?
Those who speak of Burton as a possible Labour leader neglect the fact that she does not command sufficient support within its parliamentary ranks to mount a leadership challenge against Gilmore right now. There is no immediate and glaring alternative to Burton except perhaps for the likes of junior ministers Alex White or Alan Kelly.
But before it does anything Labour must consider what impact, if any, a leadership change will have at this stage. Albeit in different circumstances, Fianna Fáil’s replacing of Brian Cowen with Micheál Martin before the general election in 2011 had little if any impact.
Voters don’t care who is leading the party that’s implementing the policies, they care about the impact those policies are having on them.
So what else? There’s a long-mooted income tax cut but the coalition is still committed to a €2 billion budget adjustment in October which means that there will be more pain ahead. Could the political imperative see some sort of relaxing of that €2 billion cut?
In a little-noticed press release this week, Labour’s chairman and failed Dublin West by-election candidate Loraine Mulligan talked about a “neutral budget” later this year where no money is taken out of the economy. It was probably a last ditch attempt at winning some votes, but might this idea gain traction as Labour debates its future in the coming days and weeks?
This would be very much the political imperative taking over any economic need purely as a result of the “shellacking” Labour has taken in these elections. It’s unlikely Fine Gael would go as far as to accede to a scrapping €2 billion of proposed cuts.
Perhaps than Labour may focus on a new programme for government. Eamon Gilmore ruled that out in an interview with us earlier this week. But yesterday, Labour minister Pat Rabbitte said that he wants the programme for government to be “renewed”.
Does that mean renegotiation – which was ruled out by the Taoiseach this week? “It might be a matter of semantics – what’s the difference between renew and renegotiate?” Rabbitte responded.
Renew or renegotiate, the semantics might not matter at all. It could be that the government has run out of options having realised too late just how angry the electorate are.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say