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It has been a rocky few months for the Government, with every week seeming to produce some new setback that corrodes confidence just a little more and adds to the niggling doubts about this Coalition lasting the full term.
A couple of wins in Seanad byelections are hardly key to the equation, but those secured on Wednesday gave the administration a badly-needed morale boost and suddenly had the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste speaking expansively about this coalition lasting until 2025.
The two Government parties forged an electoral pact ahead of the byelection for the two seats vacated by Fine Gael’s Michael D’Arcy and Sinn Féin’s Elisha McCallion.
Two former senators, Maria Byrne of Fine Gael and Gerry Horkan of Fianna Fáil, were selected as the sole Government candidate on each panel: Agricultural; and Industrial and Commercial.
Some doubts were raised within the Oireachtas. Yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could muster 106 TDs and Senators between them out of a potential electorate of 218 and so, in theory, had almost enough to get over the line on the first count as long as everybody voted with the whip.
While there was no formal deal with the Greens, there was an understanding – created by osmosis or transubstantiation, according to some – that their 16 TDs and Senators would also support the Government candidates in the expectation that they would get the nod for their candidate in the event of a future byelection.
But there were potential fault lines. For one, the agreed Coalition candidate for the Leas Ceann Comhairle position in the Dáil, Feargus O’Dowd, was defeated by Catherine Connolly, again on a secret ballot. It is certain that some Government TDs defected to give her their votes.
The entry of Hazel Chu into the race as an Independent also caused some discordance, and a full-scale internal war within the Greens.
Two other strong candidates, both former senators, also ran as Independents: the unionist Ian Marshall and the emigrant rights’ campaigner Billy Lawless. Both were backed by Sinn Féin, which was good in one sense, but also a double-edged sword.
First count
In the event, however, the pact between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael held up remarkably well for Byrne and Horkan. Both were comfortably elected on the first count.
It was evident that just about everybody in the two parties voted for them, plus perhaps half of the Green parliamentary party, with Chu doing no better than had been expected.
However, both Labour Party candidates did extremely well, with Angela Feeney getting 15 votes on the Agricultural Panel and Ciaran Ahern amassing an impressive 27 votes on the Industrial and Commercial one.
After the results had been announced, Leo Varadkar talked about the Coalition having a renewed sense of unity and purpose, and expressed confidence that it would last until 2025.
So did Micheál Martin. He said this week’s Cabinet meeting had moved on from Covid to talk about long-term issues such as the economy, youth employment, climate change and education. He said there was a sense of cohesion and of unity, which was very strong.
The Government’s own sense that it has perhaps turned a corner was buttressed by the byelections results – which gave it a fillip that it really needed.