IRELAND Dublin government collapse forces general election THE FINE GAEL/LABOUR government headed by Garret FitzGerald collapsed on January 20, forcing a general election on February 17. The four Labour ministers resigned after they had been outvoted 11 to 4 by the Fine Gael ministers on the 1987 budget. This collapse was signalled months in advance, when both government parties suffered defections in the Dail [parliament] and could no longer command a majority. JOHN MEEHAN and ANNE CONWAY
Before Christmas the government had several narrow escapes. However, it successfully rushed through an Extradition Bill, making it easier for southern Irish courts to send wanted Republicans to the British authorities.
Previously, it had been possible to invoke the "political exception": people wanted by the British could show that the charges against them were related to the national liberation struggle in the northern Six Counties directly controlled by Britain. This defence has now been abolished. (1)
This squalid haste over extradition coincides with a growing campaign against the frame-ups of Irish people in England during the 1970s: the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire family. Even the right-wing journalist Robert Kee, who has written a book on the Guildford Four frame-up Trial and Error? - has condemned the Dublin government's haste over extradition, while so many innocent people still languish in British jails.
This extradition bill is a result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. (2) At the time it was formally announced, this deal was described as "an astronomical setback and a bad day for Irish nationalism" by Charlie Haughey, leader of the bourgeois party, Fianna Fail, which has traditionally most exploited nationalist sentiment.
However, Haughey has declared that neither the Anglo-Irish Agree. ment nor the Six Counties should be an election issue. Fianna Fail would not dispense with the Agreement. That was "totally to misrepresent my position," he has said. (Irish Times, January 19, 1987.)
Haughey expects to be taoiseach [premier] after the February 17 poll, but knows that he is mistrusted on the question of the North and on the economy by big business. Fine Gael is trying to exploit Haughey's recent track record of high-blown promises, followed by crushing disappointment when he gets into office. Its answer to Ireland's economic crisis is Thatcherite attacks on living standards. Its governmental record for the last four years is grim:
* Unemployment of 250,000 -at 20 per cent of the insured work. force this is the highest in the BEC, and a record for the State.
* Emigration of 70-100,000 in the last year, according to the prelim. inary results of the 1986 census.
A national debt of IR£24,300 million - 148 per cent of GNP.
This has caused a huge fall in FG's poll ratings. The party got 39.2 per cent in the 1982 general election, but today most polls give them only 20-25 per cent.
Undeterred, Fine Gael put forward an even harsher austerity programme in its 1987 draft budget, which forced the Labour Party to leave government. Proposals included cutbacks in un-
1. For background extradition, articles International Viewpoint, No, 3. 1 me i Do in and and its
For of this deal and its consequences see sin Vent a for and 110 for reports. Fein's November 1-2 Ard Fheis (Congress), where the abstention policy was dropped.
4. The workers Party was formerly a wing of the Republican movement, having now moved far to the right. It combines abstract socialist rhetoric with such rightwing positions in practice that it has come over to the pro-imperialist side of the divide in Irish politics.
International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
employment benefit and assistance, charges for previously free hospital services, slashing of public sector budgets and the privatization of industries currently owned by the state.
Fine Gael know that they will lose this election - it may even cost Garret FitzGerald the leadership of his party. But they also know that any capitalist government in place after February 17 will, sooner or later, have to carry out an identical austerity programme. Fianna Fail, as the likely winner, riding high in the opinion polls, is trying to stay silent on its intentions. It does not want to make promises it cannot deliver - and which nobody will believe.
In fact, Fianna Fail suffered a significant split in 1985. Since 1970, when Charles Haughey was sacked from the Fianna Fail cabinet and unsuccessfully charged with conspiring to send arms to the Republicans in the Six Counties, the party has been riven with faction fights.
Not surprisingly, Haughey is standard-bearer for a populist wing, long on talk about nationalism, jobs, and Irish Catholic traditions. It has only been in the third category - bigoted Irish Catholic sectarianism - where Fianna Fail has backed up its talks with effective action.
The split from Fianna Fail is called the Progressive Democrats, and is headed by an ex-FF minister, Des O'Malley. Its politics are very similar to Fine Gael - openly pro-austerity, mildly liberal on issues such as divorce and women's rights, and very antiRepublican. The opinion polls show it taking about 15 per cent of the vote, and it is most useful to the big capitalists. While it has the same politics as Fine Gael, it can exploit its "new" image and push the political pendulum to the right.
On the left, the most promising recent development is Sinn Fein's recent decision to abandon abstention the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the austerity offensive have not been opposed with mass mobilizations.
It was the depth of the crisis in the South that gave the impetus for the decision by the last Sinn Fein Ard Fheis [congress] to drop abstention. The challenge now facing the anti-imperialist movement is to provide leadership for those forces struggling against the crisis and looking for an alternative. Such an alternative will, of necessity, involve the anti-imperialist movement forging alliances with other oppressed groups and links with the working class in particular. It will also require the opening up of a debate on the nature of the imperialist offensive and the strategy needed to combat it. Attacks on women a major issue
In recent years women have suffered the harshest attacks, the most recent being the closure, under a High Court order, of pregnancy counselling agencies that give women information on abortion. The constitutional ban on abortion was reinforced by a referendum backed by "right-tolifers" in 1983.
There has been a quick response to this blow from the women's movement, and the sweeping nature of the judgement makes it an urgent necessity for all anti-imperialists and Republicans to build support for the defence of the clinics, and make this a major issue in the election campaign.
On February 17, we can expect a certain amount of protest voting (a notable protest vote having emerged as a prominent feature in more recent elections) and a sizeable abstention, especially in the most deprived working class areas.
Sinn Fein can expect to win some of this protest vote, but in the absence of any fightback that would enable the working class to distinguish who their real allies were, the "left vote" will be divided among all sorts of "alternatives" such as independents and the pro-imperialist Workers Party. (4)
People's Democracy, the Irish section of the Fourth International, is calling for a first preference vote for Sinn Fein in these elections.
In conclusion, the election was called not because of a working class challenge but because of the inability of the coalition to carry out the programme of austerity and the political offensive needed by the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie's problem remains the lack of a clear alternative government, a Fine Gael/Progressive Democrat coalition not being on the cards this time round, although it is the favoured choice of the ruling class.
Fianna Fail, who are likely to form the next government, will be obliged to carry out attacks similar to those of the coalition on both the working class and the anti-imperialist struggle in the Six Counties. Their populist and nationalist rhetoric will fade very quickly once the election is over.
The offensive against the working class and the oppressed will intensify. The central element of Fianna Fail's strategy will be to support and strengthen the attacks by the Church and the "Morality Mafia" on women's rights, and use this as a cutting edge for wider attacks on democratic rights.
By confronting and challenging the bourgeois nationalists of Fianna Fail, the anti-imperialist movement can widen its base of support and hasten the crisis of the bourgeois parties.
and, if elected, take their seats in the 26 County Dail. (3) Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams does not expect a breakthrough in this election - he sees the party's real test coming in a following one. While this is a prudent approach, it is also true that Sinn Fein does not have unlimited time to build up its intervention in electoral politics.
In the upcoming election, Sinn Fein are standing in the context of an absence of any mass mobilization since the 1981 hunger-strike campaign. In June 1981, two H-Block prisoner candidates were elected to Leinster House [the Irish parliament]. Fianna Fail was severely damaged by the electoral intervention of the H-Block/ Armagh Campaign, which resulted in a hung Dail in 1981.
In this election, a major swing towards Sinn Fein is unlikely, as both
Gerry Adams on the election trail in 1982 (DR)
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International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
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