The coalition's mantra has been "stay the course," good times are ahead. The term the government is using is "fiscal space," or the estimated amount of money that will be available for investment if Ireland continued its economic recovery. According to Fine Gael that figure would be $12 billion between 2017 and 2021.
First, no one understood "fiscal space," a term used by the IMF. Even Deputy Prime Minister Joan Burton, a Labour Party leader, called it "a new kind of 'F' word" and said voters hadn't a clue what it meant. Asked to define it, Kenny said the Irish voters wouldn't understand it, a statement that managed to insult everyone. The government subsequently knocked the figure down to $10 billion, and the opposition said it was more like $8 billion.
And while Fine Gael is taking credit for the economy, critics are pointing out that it wasn't austerity, but a fall in world oil prices and a decline in the value of the euro that favors Ireland's export industry, that got the economy going.
Finally Kenny muffed a question about whether Fine Gael might consider a coalition with Fianna Fail because the Labour Party was dropping in the polls and might not hold its 33 seats. This enraged Labour, and Kenny had to mend fences and pledge that Fine Gael would never go into a government with Fianna Fail.
In short, the government is looking inept, and it is taking fire for its shift from "we had no choice in applying the austerity" to "we take all the credit for the current situation." Fintan O'Toole, the sharp-tongued columnist for the Irish Times and author of "Ship Of Fools," chronicling the financial greed that led to the 2008 meltdown, wrote of the government, "If you had no power, you can claim no credit; if you did have power, you have to account for how unjustly you used it."
Behind the cover of "It's not our fault," the government cut funds for caregivers, threw people off of National Health, cut support for the disabled, support for education, and did nothing about rising homelessness. As O'Toole points out, the improvements in the economy were because of oil prices, low interest rates and the falling euro, all "entirely outside the control of the Irish government."
In any case, the country is still deeply in debt and, while the jobless rate is no longer 15 percent, it is still just below 10 percent.
The Dail is a motley affair, with a host of small parties and a bloc of independents. Currently Fine Gael has 66 seats and Labour 33. The center-right Fianna Fail (that inched up slightly in recent polls) has 21, and the leftist Sinn Fein has 14. The latter dropped three points in the poll from 20 percent to 17 percent. Other left parties include the Social Democrats, the Anti-Austerity Party, and there is a mix of mainly leftists in the independent bloc. The centrist Greens are showing some growth, as is the small rightist Renva Party.
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