Article from the Sept. 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI
Progressive Democrats
THE PROGRESSIVE Democrats have just changed their leader in a massive flurry of publicity. As Mary Harney resigned, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell T.D. took her place both as Progressive Democrat leader and Tánaiste or Deputy Prime Minister in Bertie Ahern’s right-wing coalition government.
Nothing fundamentally changes as far as the basic policies of the government are concerned. Fianna Fáil representatives often try to portray themselves as belonging to a left of centre party which has a wide appeal to ordinary working people. In reality of course they are the major partner in a government that has allowed an orgy of greed and speculation put house prices at stratospheric levels, privatised key industries, gave massive tax breaks to the corporate sector while endorsing a plethora of stealth taxes and price increases which hit working class people hard.
These policies will continue although there will undoubtedly be attempts to give some economic concessions to workers as the general election approaches. However, it would be true to say that McDowell as leader of the PDs can in certain circumstances bring a potential instability to the government.
Undoubtedly a factor in Harney quitting was the realisation that her party has been languishing in the opinion polls in or around the statistical margin of error. Also she herself is mired in a health service crisis that has the old and sick lying on trolleys in the accident and emergency rooms of many hospitals. She obviously wanted to have somebody else carry the can in the election as the main face of the PDs.
Given McDowell’s enormous arrogance and gross overestimation of his personal contribution to humankind, it is quite possible that he will try to aggrandise himself and his party by picking some issues of difference with Fianna Fáil to try and carve out a profile for the PDs as a distinct party appealing to a niche cohort of right wing voters. He is however constrained in this by the fact that if he were to leave government on such issues, he could not guarantee an immediate general election and thereby would lose the advantage. This is because Fianna Fáil could undoubtedly rely on a number of independent deputies to keep itself in office.
McDowell is a ruthless right-wing politician who is capable of cynically seizing on issues in society and relying on the fawning millionaire-owned press to take them up in a reactionary way. He and the government attempted to whip up a mood of reaction during the local elections in 2004 by holding a Referendum to limit citizenship rights to children born in Ireland to mothers who weren’t themselves Irish citizens. More recently, he has come out with a plan to require all those who come to live here from outside the European Union to carry identity cards and threatened them with peremptory deportation if found to be in breach of Irish laws. Cynically he leaked these plans to a right-wing journalist in the Irish Independent to appear on the same day as a report from the Inspector of Prisons which was highly critical of McDowell.
This is but a small example of how right wing politicians can try to exploit certain fears and resentments among some sections of society. Apart from its despicable cynicism, it is monstrously hypocritical on behalf of politicians like McDowell, whose just resigned leader, Mary Harney, went to Turkey to invite Turkish big business to come to Ireland to "compete". The infamous Gama Construction company took up her invitation.
The Socialist Party will actively continue to counteract McDowell, the PDs and the government both in the Dáil and outside. The key question, of course, is to build a mass socialist opposition to these parties of the right wing which can achieve majority support to replace not only their poisonous right-wing opportunism, but also the capitalist system they represent.