Hung Dail has no has

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JOHN O'MAHONY surveys the election results in the South and what they show about Irish politics. (First part of a two-part article, two hork sunrarinashant half 1 1_ THE GENERAL election of February 18 in the Irish Republic has produced another hung Dail [Pariament].

Fianna Fail had 78 seats in the outgoing Dail to the Fine Gael/Labour block's 80. Now, after a gain of three seats for Fianna Fail, with Fine Gael having lost two while Labour has the same number at 15, Fianna Fail has a majority of three over the coalition government block (81-78).

The balance is held by a group of seven deputies, five of whom are men of the left.

The outgoing Taoiseach (prime minister), Garret Fitzgerald, has refused to concede defeat because he still hopes that a deal may be fixed up with some or all of the seven. But FF leader Charles Haughey has similar hopes and a better chance of success.

The outcome of the frantic huckstering now going on will be registered by the Dail's vote on March 9. Haughey can already count on the support of one of the independents, his excolleague on the nationalist wing of FF, Neil Blaney.

•Whether the new government is FF or FG/Labour, it will be an insecure government, probably unAdvertisement stable. The contradiction that toppled Fitzgerald has been reproduced in the new Dail with- only minor modifications: a government committed to social service cuts and economic austerity must depend for its parliamentary majority on the support of deputies of the Left who are likely to respond to pressure from those chosen by the ruling class to bear the brunt of Ireland's economic crisis.

Foreign debt

Ireland's ruling class needs a government strong enough to carry through an unpopular austerity programme. The next decade is expected to be one of economic stagnation for the Republic and of rising unemployment (it is now 13%). The 26 County economy is, per head of the population, more steeply into foreign debt than Poland is. The IMF insists that there is no room for budgetary concessions.

One in five is below the official poverty line. Emigration has ceased to be the safety valve it has been for many decades. There is a powerful labour movement and a working class 'that has been massively augmented in decades.

Even apart from the North, there is a lot of explosive material in Irish society.

An unstable and weak government, especially one dependent in the Dail on left wing votes, is therefore very bad news for the Republic's ruling class.

In fact, in a poll of 71%, neither of the main bourgevis parties lost votes. FF got 47%, a rise of 1.99%. FG got 37%, a rise of .84%.

The Labour Party lost one per cent, getting 9.13 per cent. This is complicated, however, by the standing down of two Labour deputies, including former leader Brendan Corish in Wexford. Their seats were lost to the party but would probably have been kept by the incumbents. Personal factors are central in Irish politics. So Labour could have come out of the election with two extra seats. In fact it won two new ones. One went to the outspoken anti-coalitionist Michael Higgins, chairperson of the party.

The campaign was dominated by the economy, and Northern Ireland was a marginal issue. Polls showed the electorate concerned with unemployment and inflation.

All the major parties united to conduct a barrage of propaganda aimed to convince the electorate that cuts and austerity were necessary and could not be avoided. Their seeming success may affect the immediate prospects for the new government.

Coalition budget

The coalition proposed to drop its outrageous proposal to add VAT of 18% on clothes and shoes, and instead to raise money by putting up the price of beer, cigarettes, and foreign holidays. FF promised to maintain food subsidies and not to tax short-term social security benefits, as well as scrapping VAT on kids' shoes and clothes, but endorsed the main thrust of the proposed coalition budget.

So whichever side sets up as the government March 9 will can a mardate for the bast CUCE:: to be continued next week).

vauly, averaging avvul nal the vote for hunger strikers and their supporters last year. For example, Fra. Brown stadning in Louth got 3714 first preference votes from an electorate of 57,075. They got a total of 16,894 votes, 1.01% of votes cast.

Bernadette McAliskey, candidate of. PD (Irish affiliates of the USFI), associated herself with the Provos and did not do badly, with 2085 first preference votes. (The constituency electorate was 54,726, and Charles Haughey, in the same constituency, got 16,143 first preference votes).

Despite being hounded for supporting the right to abortion, McAliskey improved on the 1481 hrst preference votes won by a H-Block candidate in the same constituency last year.

vosty, the votes that went to the hunger strikes last year are reckoned to have gone back to Fianna Fail, and in one area to Sinn Fein the Workers' Party.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party, with six candidates, made little impact. For example, J. Gilligan got 343 first preference : votes in Limerick East, and Brigid Makowski 232 in Clare.

Anne Wilkinson, supporter of Militant and chair of Letterkenny Trades Council, standing for the Labour Party, got 493 first preference votes (while the three winners in her constituency got from 8,000 to 9,000 each).

The biggest event of the glection is the consolidaton of sinn rein the Workers" Party as a force in Irish parliamentary politics.

SFWP is the political descendant of the leftist this seals Its Dublin Gallagher ate Of leaning linked to Kem agair extre whol latec time it won three 3, and 38,094 votes 1% of the poll) for 15 idates. : gains came from FF FG. 1950s ex-internee Rossa won a seat in in West, and Paddy igher in Waterford, 6682 first preferences. iously, a lot of votes h in the 1981 election . to a H-Block candidare estimated to have ig back to Gallagher time, though his party ry hostile to the militcampaign of the Proval IRA and bitterly deiced the H-Block camn as its extension). WP got 15,748 votes to ur's 49.721 in Dublin. the left independents • Gregory, who won a in Dublin Central from na Fail, is a nationalistleftist, formerly d to the IRSP. Jim my, who was returned 1 from Limerick, is mely hostile to the e nationalist tradition sh politics (he is assocI with . the so-called sh & Irish Communrganisation). 'WP has called for the ion of a left opposition • ('Grand Alliance of Left' in the Dail, sting of its 3 membLabour's 15, and the ndependents. It called abour in the election and the anti-coalitionists have been strengthened within the Parliamentary Also, with perhaps the exception of Tony Gregory, the independent leftists, the Labour Party, and SEWP have a common antipathy to Republicanism, which would be a binding force.

SFWP has a curious notion of what a 'workers' opposition' should be. It considers it to be its democratic duty to vote for a Taoiseach on March 9. 'There is no question of abstaining' ', said SFWP president Tomas McGiolla. 'It is our duty to help provide a government' SFWP 'will vote for the best offer made to meet its demands about the new government's budget. Then, it will go into opposition' . McGiolla has sought a meeting with the Labour Party leaders and is willing to talk to FF and FG.

Its main demands are:

• VAT to be held at its pre-budget level.

• A reduction in income tax for the PAYE sector.

• Increases in property and capital taxation.

• Legislation allowing divorce.

• Dramatic improvement in family planning services.

• Meat and food industries to be expanded.