“Gilmore jockeying for position in Kenny’s revolution”

This is an unpublished comment/opinion piece about the implications of the 2011 Irish general election and the coalition talks between Fine Gael and Labour.  It is written in broadsheet style as part of an in-class exercise.

FINE Gael may have scored a dramatic victory, but it remains to be seen whether this election really proves to be the start of the “fundamental change” that Enda Kenny is proclaiming it to be.

It may well be, but perhaps not for Fine Gael.  In fact, it may transpire that the Labour party holds the real key to transforming Irish politics.

To do so, Eamon Gilmore needs to decide quickly how far he is prepared to steer his party from its traditional centre-left ideology in order to pave the way for a solid and functioning coalition with Fine Gael.

While doing so he will be acutely aware that any failings of a Fine Gael/Labour government are very likely to be laid at his party’s doorstep, and he will be bargaining hard for enough influence in the new cabinet to limit any likelihood of a Green Party-like meltdown.

The best way to keep the dissenting voices quiet will be for Labour to deliver on some of his pre-election promises, and surely nothing would cheer its supporters more than stopping further cuts to social welfare.

If Labour were able to block Fine Gael’s proposed €10 per week cut to welfare, and if it could at least reduce the suggested €250m cuts to child benefit, then it would be firmly on the front foot with the party faithful.

Then, if it could push through its plan for a €500m job fund to boost the economy, or as a compromise, convince Fine Gael to increase taxes for higher earners, then even the most uncompromising traditionalists within the Labour party would have little ammunition with which to mount an attack.

Of course, the monumental debt that the State has amassed will require serious attention and hard decisions will need to be made, but the difference between €85bn and €65bn is meaningless to the average person on the street in their day-to-day lives.

An unemployed couple struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table for their children doesn’t really care much whether the budget deficit is reduced by a certain percentage in three or in five years.

But this family certainly does care if their limited money is reduced yet further to pay off debts that they had no hand in creating, just as they’ll care when they are unable to pay their children’s increasing student registration fees.