FIANNA FÁIL AND Fine Gael aren’t getting on with each other. That’s the narrative circulating right now. 

But don’t be fooled. It makes sense for both parties to be having argy-bargys in public and on TV programmes right now. 

Last night, Fine Gael’s Hildegarde Naughton and Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers got into a shouting match on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show over financial figures.

Fianna Fáil state their manifesto is fully costed, Fine Gael says Micheál Martin’s figures “don’t stack up”.

Fights over financials

It started with a statement from Fine Gael TD and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe who said the Fianna Fáil manifesto calculations “leave a lot to be desired”, stating the figures are inflated by as much as €5.2bn, with no credible explanation given.  

Naughton took up the running on VMTV, saying he was getting “echoes of 2011″ and Fianna Fáil’s “mess” in government. 

Finance Minister Jack Chambers said his Cabinet colleague was being “disingenuous” and “misleading” in her assertions

On the programme last night, he called for the Fine Gael manifesto to be published (it is due to be launched this weekend).

The absolute state of this ...

Jack Chambers & Hildegarde Naughten shouting over each other like they haven't been in government together for years. #TonightVMTV #Ge24 pic.twitter.com/WEbGMFvLs8

— Mick Caul (@caulmick) November 12, 2024

It’s an argument that might sound familiar.

That’s because it is. The parties fell out over it in the last election too.

It’s a go-to fight between the parties that one Fianna Fáil source said has been happening for “every manifesto ever launched since Jesus was a child”.

Fine Gael people were not happy with last night’s events, briefing that it was “another meltdown” by Chambers on TV, comparing it to the Claire Byrne Live Climate Change debate during the 2020 campaign when he was criticised for his tone and demeanour.

Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly today accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil of orchestrating a “sham row” for the cameras. 

“I don’t think they’re fooling anybody, I’m assuming they’re not fooling any of you guys, and I don’t think they’re fooling any of the public either,” she said. 

Tensions and disagreements

Since the election campaign kicked off last week, there have been reports of “tensions” between the two parties. There have also been reports that Fine Gael has been pushing the narrative that Micheál Martin is grumpy and tetchy, for which he has told Fine Gael to “calm down”.

Parties that would dampen down any talk of disagreements while in government are now openly disagreeing on issues such as VAT, energy bills, decriminalisation of drug use. 

It’s all par for the course. It’s an election after all, and each party wants to come out with the most seats at the end of the day.

If that means sticking the boot into the people you sat around the Cabinet table with for four years, so be it. Politics is a harsh sport. It’s every party for itself. 

But make no mistake, these phoney wars are all for the voters and play into the drive for the parties to separate and differentiate themselves from each other.

Each will look to stir the pot throughout this campaign.  

You’ll be seeing a lot of more of it over the next couple of weeks. Everything will be overblown, and sure, isn’t that what we love about election campaigns? Something is said, it’s seized on for a couple of days, they each take digs at each other and it moves on to the next thing.

Unfortunately, what is lost in all of this bluff and blunder is meaningful debate about the issues that matter. 

Frenemies 

It wasn’t all that long ago that #FFG was a thing on social media. The two parties were long-time enemies since the civil war days, but the two started to court each other, and somewhat lost their identities when Fianna Fáil went into a confidence and supply arrangement with Fine Gael after inconclusive results of the 2016 general election. 

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From then on, Fianna Fáil found it difficult to argue that they were in opposition when they were underpinning that government. There was commentary that the party had lost its identity and was struggling to define itself, something its party leader vehemently denied. 

In the 2020 election, Martin opened his first election campaign launch by saying they were campaigning for change. That was their first problem.

Voters found it hard to separate the two parties and that has only been emboldened now since the two parties went into government together, something that Martin had ruled out during the 2020 campaign. 

So now, what we are seeing, is the two parties trying to blow apart the chains that have linked them for the best part of a decade.

It is more important than ever that they draw lines between one another. It was evident this week in the controversy over Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary’s comments at the launch of Fine Gael’s Peter Burke’s campaign in Mullingar. 

At the Fianna Fáil manifesto launch, Martin pointed to the reaction from Fine Gaelers, hinting that it was illustrative of the fundamental difference in ethos of the two parties. 

The message: Fianna Fáil would never jeer teachers, but Fine Gael laughed along. 

Fine Gael are at it too. At the launch of the party’s housing proposals, Simon Harris, without mentioning Fianna Fáil by name, spoke about the people who caused the economic crash and how his party had to come in and pick up the pieces.

He spoke about ghost estates, how people came to his office in tears that they might lose their homes, and how the IMF had come to town to take the wheel. Again, all this speaks to what is at play here. 

The message: We’re not one of the same. We are different. We don’t get along with each other… well, until we have to, anyway.