a Dáil majority for the Left, which needed to set these differences aside and ‘seize the moment’.
There was no mention of Sinn Féin in the speech, and the only reference to the Labour Party was in the context of the previous general election. But an alliance of ‘Social Democrats, Left Republicans and Independent Socialists’ could only mean those two parties along with others from the ‘broad left’ among the Independent TDs, as well as their followers and co-thinkers.5The speech was welcomed in a statement later that day by Senator David Cullinane, Sinn Féin’s spokesman on trade union issues, who said that his party was ‘committed to forming broad alliances with parties and independents to maximise the potential for an Irish Government that is anti-austerity’.6
Next day, Justine McCarthy reported in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times that Sinn Féin had been in talks for more than two months with trade unions, left-wing groups and independent TDs to agree a platform for the general election, with the talks gaining impetus from Syriza’s election victory in Greece the previous weekend. Union officials and co-ordinators of the Right2Water campaign against the water charges, Brendan Ogle of the Unite trade union and Dave Gibney from Mandate,were named as two of the ‘key promoters’ of the talks. TD Richard Boyd Barrett, a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, a Trotskyist group, was quoted as backing the talks. He added, though, that ‘Sinn Féin have to decide whether they’re building a specifically Left project or whether they just want to be in government.’
Another Dáil deputy, from a different wing of the Trotskyist left, Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party (SP), said that his organisation was not involved in the talks, and wouldn’t be prepared to make an election pact with Sinn Féin which was not a party of the left and was ‘taking an anti-austerity position in the South while implementing austerity in the North’. 7The SP also has a different approach on the national question and its position was set out in greater detail in its newspaper, The Socialist:
Jack O’Connor, leader of the South’s biggest union SIPTU, has been openly courting Sinn Féin. SIPTU are affiliated to the Irish Labour Party, and its support has collapsed as it has been implementing massive austerity as part of the Southern coalition government. North and South the union leaders, rather than organising a real concerted struggle against the austerity being implemented by both governments, would rather back the likes of Sinn Féin in order to get a few crumbs from the table.8
Writing in An Phoblacht (The Republic), Sinn Féin’s chairman Declan Kearney, a key party strategist, said that the basis for going into government in the South should be the advancement of ‘republican objectives’, and not simply entering coalition for its own sake. He added that ‘formal political discussion should commence on how to forge consensus between Sinn Féin, progressive independents, the trade union movement, grassroots communities, and the non-sectarian Left’. These talks should focus ‘on the ideas and strategies which will ensure the future election of a Left coalition in the South dedicated to establishing a new national Republic’.9
Meanwhile, in the Sunday Business Post, Pat Leahy reported that ‘Sinn Féin is moving to formally rule out coalition as a minority partner with either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael after the next election’. He said that a motion was expected to go before the party’s ardfheis (national conference) in early March, with backing from the ardchomhairle (national executive committee), mandating the leadership to this effect.10About two weeks after O’Connor’s Glasnevin speech, Sinn Féin sent out a press notice that Adams and Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald would be ‘available for media comment on key challenges facing people prior to the general election’. It was what we media folk call a ‘doorstep’, ahead of a Sinn Féin meeting at the Teachers’ Club in Dublin’s Parnell Square. Perhaps because it was held in the evening there were only two journalists present, myself and a colleague from one of the daily papers.
I asked Adams what kind of line-up Sinn Féin would be prepared to accept, in the event of a coalition being on the table, and assuming there could be agreement on a common programme before taking office. Replying that a Sinn Féin majority government would be the party’s first preference, he continued:
First of all, I see this very clearly in two phases, and the first phase is to get the biggest possible mandate for Sinn Féin. That will, of course, influence the other parties; that will perhaps, in some way, determine how the other parties get on as well. The second phase is to negotiate a programme for government. And clearly, given our politics, there’s an incompatibility between our position[and], say, for example, [that of] Fine Gael. Also, one of the big benefits of Labour being in government, for other political parties, is that you learn not to do what they have done, which is [for] a minority party to append itself to a senior partner, a conservative party. So we will not do that. And, actually, even though I understand the legitimacy of the question, I actually don’t think there’s much point, given that the people haven’t voted. We have to be humble; it’s the people’s day, they will decide who will form the government. So, mandate first, programme for government second. And we’ll decide on the basis of that.
He welcomed Jack O’Connor’s remarks, especially where the SIPTU leader said the type of government he was proposing wouldn’t be able to do everything at once, and would have to set priorities. He continued as follows: ‘If we were able to, in one sentence, say our preference, it has to be an anti-austerity government, which may be wider than the Left. Who knows who’s going to come out of, you know, the [general election]... Shane Ross is certainly anti-austerity. Who knows, among the Independents, who might come out of all of that. But again I’m making the mistake of speculating about all of that.’
Formerly a member of Fine Gael, Shane Ross was elected to the Dáil in 2011 as a non-party Independent TD, and took the lead in forming an alliance with other Independents, some of them on the Left, with a view to working out a deal with the next government, possibly in return for cabinet seats. In an issue published the day after Adams spoke to me, the Phoenix, a magazine which takes a close interest in the internal life of the republican movement, outlined a possible scenario whereby Sinn Féin could be the largest element in an anti-austerity group in coalition with Fianna Fáil:
Behind the scenes, Sinn Féin activists, including the leadership, are planning a coalition proposal that could get round the problem of being a minority party in government. The strategy – based on the acceptance that Fianna Fáil would have more seats than Sinn Féin – is to create a post-election alliance of Sinn Féin with Left Independents and even Labour. On a rough calculation that sees Fianna Fáil with 35 seats; Sinn Féin 30; Left Independents 10 and Labour perhaps 10, such a coalition would have a majority of 80-plus seats out of 158 in the next Dáil. But it would also see such an alliance having more than Fianna Fáil. This would allow Sinn Féin[…] to argue that the Left Alliance was the largest part of such a coalition with a mandate for a left programme in government.11
In the Sunday Times, Justine McCarthy reported that union leaders Brendan Ogle and Dave Gibney had met at Leinster House with a Sinn Féin group, headed by deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, to discuss a left-wing, pre-election alliance:
The meeting opened on a confrontational note. The previous Sunday, addressing a party meeting in Mullingar, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams had welcomed a call by the SIPTU president Jack O’Connor, for the Irish left to unite on ‘a common platform’. There is a sharp divergence of both style and strategy between SIPTU, which has about 200,000 members and is officially affiliated to the Labour Party, and other unions such as Mandate and Unite, which are commonly branded ‘militant’. In his Mullingar speech, Adams said that elements of the trade union movement must end their ‘unrequited support’ for Labour. Ogle and Gibney regard Labour as toxic and having scant hope of being in the next government. To them, SIPTU is backing a loser. SIPTU and Labour are joined at the hip, they warned Sinn Féin[…]The most immediate bone of contention between SIPTU and the Right2Water unions is water charges. SIPTU, which counts water utility workers among its members, believes there is a need for water charges and an administrative structure. The
