Paul Hosford: Clock is ticking towards general election date
Date Farrell Budget Changed European The Said Picture: Due Chambers Leah Jack Was Duties To
If you put your ear to the ground and listen very carefully, you just might hear the canvassers.
Sure, they're far away, but they're getting ready. Limbering up for leaflet drops and door knocks. For ladders and hanging posters.
A general election, it seems, is not far away.
At most, this coalition has eight months to run. But the announcement that this year's budget will be held on October 1 rather than a week later has been taken as the surest sign that the zip ties will be around the lamp-posts before the clocks go forward at the end of October, or within a week thereof.
But is it that simple? Yes and no.
The straightest line to draw here is between cause and effect. The line goes: The Budget is the largest piece of work outstanding for the coalition before an election; there is an earlier Budget, therefore there is an earlier election. It is a line as straight as an arrow and a theory that is being favoured in media and political circles since Finance Minister Jack Chambers made the announcement on Thursday morning, though he denied strenuously that the thinking was election-based.
It's not the domestic, he said, but the European which is necessitating the sooner-than-anticipated Budget. New EU rules will require member states to publish budgetary plans four or five years in advance and Ireland needs to have its work handed up by October 15 to the European Commission.
Unlike the current rules, which focus on a one-year timeframe, the new fiscal rules will place a greater focus on country-specific, medium-term budgetary plans and there is a sensitivity around overloading officials in the early weeks of October, as well as a desire for Mr Chambers to attend a meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on October 8.
The newly-installed finance minister told RTÉ's just that.
"There’s a reason why it's on October 1, which is that we have to prepare a budgetary and fiscal framework for the 15th of October, and I'll be attending Ecofin and the Eurogroup meeting the week prior to that," he said.
See? This is a European imperative and has nothing to do with domestic politics.
Taoiseach Simon Harris was even more unequivocal. He said that it had "long been known" by the coalition leaders, due to European finance ministers meeting the following week. He said that the new date "makes sense" as it allows the finance and public expenditure ministers to attend meetings with their European counterparts.
"Away from the media and political bubble, the Irish people will be much more interested in the substance of the budget, not the date of the budget," he said.
"There won't be an election this year."
Since taking office as Taoiseach, Mr Harris has been adamant that March is the earliest point at which the public will see a ballot paper. So strong, in fact, have his pronouncements been, that one would question why he hasn't given himself some wiggle room. One Fine Gael politician this week suggested that Mr Harris would be better served by allowing himself the chance to call an election early if he so chooses.
The thinking is that being a little bit more circumspect on the date would serve the dual purpose of keeping the opposition on its toes but also to allow him to decide when the best time for an election would be.
But for all of the protests, it's hard to see the benefit for the Government in continuing on to its maximum term.
Take first the timing. By the time the budget is passed, the coalition will have a small window of public attention before the Christmas season starts. Nobody wants to go canvassing when people are putting up their Christmas trees.
Likewise, there is a major desire among many veterans of the elections of 2011, 2016, and 2020 to avoid canvassing in the dark evenings of January and February. The cold, the Christmas hangover, and the dark nights have scarred many a political operator to the point where the words "February canvasses" brings about a kind of thousand-yard stare that's only ever earned through experience.
The timing itself becomes an issue in that there isn't much of it left. Should Mr Harris decide to go the distance, there are 37 weeks left of this Government. Around 14 of those will see the Dáil in recess. The Dáil goes into recess the week after next and does not return until September, which will be largely eaten up by Mr Harris' expected trip to New York to address the UN General Assembly, and budget speculation before the document is delivered on October 1.
So, the Government realistically has from October 2 to November 15 to really hold the public's attention en masse, until around the middle of January, at which point the speculation on when Mr Harris will dissolve the Dáil begins, because we enter the territory during which he has to by law.
And then there's public sentiment. The most recent Red C poll for the has shown that, despite falling by one point, Fine Gael is most popular among the general public at 21%. Mr Harris is like all politicians and will caution that the only poll that matters is the one on election day, but nobody in politics is blind to opinion polls. If Fine Gael feels that Sinn Féin is on the back foot, there will be plenty of voices clamouring for the Taoiseach to pull the plug in early October and send us to the polls.
The announcement on Thursday morning certainly allows Mr Chambers to head to Luxembourg as part of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, and that is handy for both himself and Ireland.
But until the clocks go forward without an election, it's hard to believe that's the only reason.