News
Tough decisions do serious damage to FF in opinion polls
ACTIONS have consequences and the government’s efforts to try to save €2 billion in expenditure by putting a pensions levy on public service pay has seen its popularity drop in this month’s opinion polls, with Fianna Fáil not alone trailing Fine Gael, but also the Labour Party for the first time in the history of these polls. It was bad enough for Taoiseach Brian Cowen when the last such Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll in mid-November saw FF fall behind FG for the first time, but to also fall behind Labour this time around must seem to him and his party faithful like the final straw – especially with Eamon Gilmore now strongly fancying himself as a future Taoiseach!
Naturally, the public service unions’ high-profile protests against the government’s perceived targeting of them for the main burden of the expenditure cuts through the imposition of the pensions levy has been a major factor in the further drop in the government’s popularity. However, not everyone disagrees with the pensions levy, while the unions’ assertion that public service workers are being scapegoated by the levy and made to take a disproportionate share of the pain of these cutbacks is not widely accepted outside of their membership.
The action may drive a wedge between workers in the private and public sector, as it is estimated that there is already a 20% gap between comparable pay levels in both sectors, with the public service workers winning out. And, that is before their job security and guaranteed pension entitlements are taken into consideration.
Add to this the fact that the overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the current economic recession have been in the private sector and the arguments of the public service workers’ union against the pension levy seem pithy. It is possible that some re-adjustment of the percentage levy on the salaries of lower-paid workers could be negotiated with a view to spreading the burden more equitably within the public service, but under no circumstances should the government contemplate a u-turn on this issue, as this would totally erode any credibility they have left.
In the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, 38% of people thought the pension levy was too tough, with 20% saying it was not tough enough and 31% thinking that it was just about right in the circumstances. However, some 47% of people polled felt that the government was wrong to have proceeded with the imposition of the levy on public servants without the agreement of the social partners.
Most interesting of all were the responses to the question as to who people think is taking the most pain in the current economic crisis: 39% thought that the private sector was taking more pain, while 29% said the public sector and 24% felt it was being shared equally. The ‘Don’t knows’ accounted for the remaining 8%.
Inevitably, the majority polled were not in favour of tax increases, but there was a resignation that this would happen when the Commission on Taxation reports back to the government shortly. Asked in what area they would prefer to see new or increased taxes, the biggest preference (29%) was for property tax – clearly because this would affect wealthier people more.
Reading between the lines, it is not all bad news for the government in the longer term, because people seem resigned to tax increases and their inevitable introduction will not be as painful when it comes. Also, it would seem, people generally accept the fact that the government will have to make some unpopular decisions and, when the wisdom of having done so manifests itself further down the line, they may win back some of their lost respect for having done so.
However, Fine Gael’s current standing in the polls, even though it slipped two percentage points since November last (due to what Enda Kenny explained as its ‘tough medicine’ stance on the economy) to 32% in this month’s poll, puts it a massive ten points ahead of Fianna Fáil, which dropped another five points from three months ago – making a total fall of 20 points since last June, the month after Brian Cowen took over as party leader and Taoiseach.
The big winner this time was the Labour Party, which was up ten points to 24% since the last poll. Eamon Gilmore is still the most popular party leader, with Enda Kenny still personally failing to reflect his party’s popularity in the polls, while Brian Cowen’s rating has plummeted at the same rate as the economy and the banks, as he shoulders the blame for everything that has gone wrong in the country.
These are worrying times for Fianna Fáil, who probably now rue the day they won the last general election and have been forced since to preside over the economic downturn that was inevitable after the Celtic Tiger boom – especially when they put all their eggs in the one basket, i.e. the property sector, which collapsed so quickly and so spectacularly, without the promised ‘soft’ landing that many naïve politicians predicted would happen. However, it is only right and proper that Fianna Fáil should be forced to suffer the brickbats for causing the economic mess and then given the opportunity to try to clear it up.
They are suffering now like never before in the opinion polls and who knows where it all could end. Like Eamon De Valera’s family newspaper, The Irish Press, which was such a fixture in Irish society for so many years, Dev’s political party could meet the same fate, unless Fianna Fail’s current leader arrests the slide in its popularity, as one would be foolish to assume anything is sacred any more in this day and age.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has little choice but to take the government’s current unpopularity on the chin and to continue to work hard in the hope of better days ahead. But, unfortunately for him, these days may not come half fast enough as his Fianna Fáil party candidates will probably suffer a political backlash in the local and European elections, which take place on June 5 next.
The extent of what damage is done then could determine his own political future for better or worse. And, of course, there is always the danger that the Green Party – the majority of whose grassroots members seem to be unhappy with its continuing role in the current coalition government – could withdraw its support and either coalesce with Fine Gael and Labour or trigger a general election.
Ironically, the best hope of redemption for Brian Cowen and Fianna Fáil would be to forget about the party and put the country first, concentrating on what he identified as the biggest priority during his rousing unscripted speech at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce dinner earlier this month – the creation of jobs. Progress on this front would certainly increase his personal stock and that of his party.
The big problem here, however, could be the unknown – what next big economic shock that may be coming down the tracks to knock our recovery plans back again, as so many of our troubles in this regard have been triggered by outside influences that we can do little or nothing about. All one can be reasonably expected to do is to look after one’s own patch as best one can and, after that, everything is in the lap of the gods – and the pollsters!