The Case for a Left Government – Getting Rid of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael

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Real change means booting Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael out of office. We need a left government that promotes the interests of working people as enthusiastically as they looked after the privileged.

There should also be a break from an informal understanding in Dáil Éireann that any party could coalesce with another provided ‘the numbers are right’. The assumption is that there can be a compromise on policies which are diametrically opposed to each other. It leads to a degrading of democratic choice. Voters may think they have voted for, let’s say left environmental policies, but they actually get a government that has a different agenda. The case of the Green Party should be a warning to all.

But what if there was a minority right-wing party in a new government? This is by no means impossible as Fianna Fáil has quietly shifted its position. Whereas previously it was committing to a coalition with Fine Gael over the longer term, it now claims that ‘ it is not ruling it out’ coalition with Sinn Féin. Strangely, Sinn Féin has not ruled out that possibility either. In 2018, for example, Mary Lou McDonald even said she wanted to form a coalition with either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.

However, if Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are in the next government, even as minority parties, they will block actions we need to stand up to corporate landlords, tackle the big polluters and end the rule of big business. They will use their positions to undermine any move to substantially increase the minimum rate of pay or end church control of education. These right-wing parties represent the interests of the rich and privileged and so would only join a Sinn Féin led coalition to ‘house train’ the party into the practices of the Irish political establishment.

Unfortunately, recent experience in the North illustrates this. Sinn Féin has been in coalition with the DUP from 2007 to 2020. During that time, they implemented austerity policies and supported measures to reduce corporation taxes on the wealthy. Both the DUP and Sinn Féin blocked any advance on women’s rights, forcing thousands of women to travel to Britain for abortions. There can be little doubt that the presence of Fianna Fáil in a coalition with Sinn Féin would produce a similar conservative result.

We, therefore, need a real left-wing government that is willing to uproot the privileges the wealthy have enjoyed.