Post-conference revue

I’ll do one as soon as I earn a reprieve from essay-land – hopefully later this week. I believe I was the only blogger to attend all five party conferences this year and I have a few observations to share from my experiences. I also have a few thoughts on the usefulness of having bloggers cover these events. All going well, I should have it up here by Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned.

As good as it gets (for Kenny)

Ahead of tonight’s speech by Enda Kenny, Cian at Irish Election had the most salient analysis of the Fine Gael leader’s task:

Kenny tonight has a huge task to prove he can converse with the ISME voter, the person with whom Fine Gael want to be associated… Kenny is the dealbreaker. His performance tonight is a barometer of whether the party is moving toward power or standing in the midst of a dervish, unmoving while all around them are in flux. If he doesn’t pull it off Lucinda will be the tip of the iceberg.

I think we can safely say that Kenny did as much as he could tonight to seal the deal with voters, particularly small business owners and out-of-work professionals and ABC1s – what Cian termed ‘ISME voters’.

No income tax increases and the abolition of employers’ PSRI for every new job created should play to that section of the electorate. He also reiterated other populist initiatives announced by FG in recent weeks, such as reducing the number of junior ministers from 20 to 12. Of course, he hammered home the ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ theme – 100,000 to be created by the end of 2013. All that will go down well with the ISMEs.

But his the delivery of the speech is worth a mention. Such things are important – especially for Enda Kenny, who has always appeared wooden on television and in formal addresses. Tonight he performed to his best, which still wouldn’t touch Gilmore and Cowen on their good days but, hey, FG weren’t expecting miracles. For him, this is as good as it gets. Kenny has positioned himself well to look like an alternative leader amid the turbulence of the week ahead.

One final point: the Fine Gael membership were really up for it this weekend. This evening leader’s speech and warm-up acts received a rake of spontaneous rounds of applause and standing ovations – something I didn’t see at any other conference  this season. The TDs sitting behind Kenny were faster than ever in reaching his lapels at the finish. (Election hopeful Pascal Donohue literally ran to his side.) In contrast, Labour seemed serious and subdued last week. As Michael Ring said in his prelude speech that nearly brought the house down: they can “smell power”.

FG in City West: the weekend ahead

Greetings from the Fine Gael Ard Fheis at Chez Mansfield in Saggart. Kenny’s opening speech contained the usual pep about the party’s team of candidates heading into the local and European elections. 75 local candidates are under 35 years of age. Kenny also boasted that one in five candidates are women, which doesn’t seem like something to boast about but such is the low level of participation by women in Irish politics.

But Kenny didn’t spend long bigging up his own party and swiftly moved to attacking Fianna Fáil for its mismanagement of the economy and not forseeing the current turmoil.

However, his main theme this evening was the health service.

Lacking something…

Last year was always going to be a hard act to follow but Eamon Gilmore’s leadership address tonight was disappointing, even if it did push many of the right buttons.

Once again, no other Irish politician does empathy with human suffering as well as him (or his speech writer).

Not quite Armageddon but not quite Paradise either

 

The Conference Hall, post Leader's Address

 

Gilmore’s address contained nothing entirely unexpected. There is little a party leader can say these days that has not been said before, be in in a party address or in the Dáil.

Sense of unity carries Labour into ’21st Century’

Labour’s debate on the recommendations of its 21st Century Commission reminded me of similar debates at past congresses of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI). It wasn’t just because many of the younger speakers also popped up at USI debates, but the nature of the debate – disagreements about how the organisation should be structured and run – often featured at those gatherings of student representatives.

Paul Dillon, a former president of UCD Students’ Union was one of the most articulate speakers on the opposition side in Mullingar. He was joined by several Labour Youth delegates and speakers from the party’s Northern Ireland organisation. It was clear from the reception they received that many delegates sympathised with their cause.

Their time to change

Not surprisingly Labour delegates have voted overwhelmingly in favour for the implementation of the 21st Century Commission Report this afternoon, a move party members feel places them on the ‘cusp of greatness’. 

During the debate there were 14 members speaking against the commission and 13 proposing it. That more people would take to the stage to oppose was not lost on some party members, specifically those in opposition. 

The mood from both sides was that this was a deciding moment in the creation of  a Labour party that could feasibly offer decisive alternative leadership after the next election. Speakers against the commission were keen to stress that their opposition to Eamon Gilmore’s proposals was not an opposition to Gilmore himself.

Latest poll

Something of a downer for Labour on the day that’s in it. Tomorrow’s Red C / Sunday Business Post poll:

FG 31 (+1)
FF 28 (+5)
Lab 17 (-5)
SF 7 (-4)
Green 7 (+1)
Others 10 (+2)

Bashing ‘the high priests of this madness’

Greeting from the Labour Party conference in the ‘Gar (as I’m told they call it here). Ciara and I arrived just in time for Gilmore’s speech and since then we’ve been desperately looking for something to blog about, such has been the dearth of newsworthy happenings.

Not that Gilmore’s opening remarks to the conference didn’t have anything new in it.

Beef to the heels

And a warm welcome from the centre of Ireland, the heartland, the Lake County….

The Mullingar Park hotel is alive with perhaps a few less than the 1,000 delegates expected in Mullingar this weekend. Motions this evening have included  social and family affairs, education and agriculture. 

Eoin has an overview of the motions thus far and anything noteworthy that has cropped up.

The mood in the hotel is buoyant, Labour are topping polls at the moment and there is much talk of becoming a viable third option for Ireland’s voting public.

Pimp (I mean green) your house

The winning entry in the Green Party’s viral video competition:

The rest of the entries are here.

Gormley’s speech: lapped up the faithful but not much for the masses

As a junior coalition partner, the Greens were always going to fall between two stools at their national conference: they could not be scathingly critical of the government, nor could they announce a raft of new initiatives as they only hold two cabinet portfolios.

On the night, Gormley played up to the party faithful in the first half of the speech (touching on all the Greens’ greatest hits: Trevor standing up to planning corruption; clamping down on bad planning; stopping corporate donations to political parties), before coming to more tedious business in the latter stages. I think the other way around would have worked better, with the climatic rallying cries coming in the closing minutes.

The Green cure

My friends, the Green Party will do the right thing. We will be part of the cure. And we will get Ireland back on the road to economic recovery.

- John Gormley, leader’s speech, Green Party National Convention

Mark Coughlan has the main points. I’ll have more shortly.

Sticking with the Greens

Hacks covering political conventions are often obsessed with capturing the ‘mood’ over the weekend. But while I don’t think the opinions of hundreds or thousands of delegates can be easily surmised, a certain resolution and determination seems to have emerged among Green Party members here in Wexford despite the subdued atmosphere.

I joined the Green Party just over two years ago, thinking it one of the most practical ways of doing something about the issues I believe will define our generation – climate change, resource depletion, social injustice and global poverty. I wasn’t in the country the night the party decided to enter government, but I was convinced it was the right move.

Like many members, I was swept up in the excitement of the occasion, ignoring a proposed programme for government disappointingly light on Green policy. For a small party with a short history on the fringe of Irish politics, the opportunity to enter government was too exciting – too historic – to turn down. I put the reality of the mediocre deal on offer to the back of my mind.

Since than, many on the left have criticsed the Greens’ decision to enter government, and particularly the speed with which some core party positions were dropped.  However, it’s much easier to avoid the awkward practicalities of entering government and gain lasting influence than to stay outside on the moral high ground, standing on a soapbox that allows critics to appease their conscience and appear radical while practically achieving little, a position many on the left seem quite comfortable with.

‘Obama tools’

Meet Oisin Hanrahan and Paddy Cosgrave of the soon-to-be-launched MiCandidate.eu . The pair’s website will be collecting and hosting information on all the Green Party’s candidates in the forthcoming European and local elections.

Originally involved in the Rock the Vote Ireland campaign, Oisin and Paddy first built their website to host information on all general election candidates in 2007, during which they’re content was embedded on the RTÉ and Irish Times websites.

This year they have agreed with a number of political parties to host candidate information on their behalf, complemented by interactive tools – which, for simplicity, they call ‘Obama tools’. These include the facility to sign-up to a candidate’s txt and email updates, while also being able to respond and offer your opinion on their new policies, etc.

MiCandidate.eu will also host information on candidates contesting the European elections in all 27 EU member states.

At this stage, I have no idea how well these services will work and, even if they’re great, how many people would be interested. The site’s main selling point seems to be satisfying the demand for greater interactivity between voters and candidates’ campaigns since the success of my.barackobama.com But, wouldn’t such a service need to be tailored to suit each candidate’s needs and personality?

The standard rate of the service for candidates is €249, but Green Party election hopefuls can avail of it for €199. The site will undergo public testing in early April.

Photo to follow as soon as I find a USB cable for my camera

Eoin

No to national unity government

The main only news from this morning: the two motions on a national unity government were defeated. The first, calling for the Greens to enter into negotiations with all the other parties in the Dáil, was rejected on the floor. The second, proposing that the leadership consider the merits of such a government, was too close to call by a hand count and a ballot was necessary. The result was 55 in favour, 45 against – short of the required two-thirds majority. Tight enough for a motion that, if passed, would have been embarrassing for the leadership.

Eoin

‘Let us become the change we want to see happen’

- Trevor Sargent this morning (full speech here).

And yet another party throws out the Obama-like rallying cries.

Later, a herd of bloggers (what’s the appropriate collective noun?) will be attending the ‘Lessons from Obama’ workshop, which is being given by the Greens’ New Media officer Martin Leathem. See the Live Blog from quarter past five on.

Eoin

YRC arrives in Wexford…

Yellow Roman Candles has just arrived in Wexford for the Green Party convention after a mammoth six hour trip from Galway – a trip that included a strange incident somewhere in Laois involving a line of stopped traffic, a minibus, and a large crowd on the road examining a weird gelatinous fluid smeared on the bonnet and windscreen of a car. Traveling through Clara and Tullamore before that, I wasn’t too surprised to see the endless hoardings and banners that congratulated local-man-made-good Brian Cowen on his appointment as Taoiseach gone.

The mood in the White’s hotel bar amongst party members appeared fairly subdued, and the crowd was quite a bit older than expected. Tomorrow is when the real action starts of course. I’m keen to hear how a couple of policy motions go down – there’s two that touch on whether it’s time for the Greens to pull out of government, one that calls on the government to do something about the vast number of empty houses in the country, another on nepotism in politics, another calling on Dublin Bus to gets it act together, as well as a rather silly motion calling for a national unity government. Overall the list of motion is fairly dull though, with most of them dealing with issues such as public and private sector salaries and bonuses, politicans’ pay and expeses, the economic crisis and something called the green economy. Boring! Could I suggest a motion proposing somebody (anybody!) else but Liam O’Maonlai for tomorrow’s pre-Gormley entertainment?

Cowen doesn’t get his half mill

Given the seriousness of our economic situation, there was some speculation around City West on Saturday that the television audience for Cowen’s speech to the Soldiers (his fourth ‘State of the Nation,’ as it were) might break the 500,000 mark. In the event he pulled in 375,000.

That amounts to a decent 24.6% of the audience at that time. I suppose expecting the half mill was wishful thinking on a day when 1 million viewers had already watched a rugby match. Many of the viewers at home probably had their fill of TV for the day, while the pub audience would have moved on to a higher state of enlightenment by half past eight.

RTÉ also tell me that 88,000 watched Gerry Adams’ speech at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the previous Saturday (10.9% of the audience). I reckon it’s time Sinn Féin move to the 8.30-9pm slot – not many are able for the 50 minute-long political speech these days.

Cowen’s audience was well above the 263,000 (16.6%) who watched Kenny’s speech in November (though that was a Fine Gael ‘national conference’ and not a fully-fledged Ard Fheis), and also way past the 246,000 (14.6%) who watched Gilmore’s address to the Labour faithful at a ’special delegate conference’ later that month.

Was it good for you?

First, please bear in mind that this is my reaction to the speech having witnessed it from inside the conference hall. It was pitched for a television audience so the reactions of the folks at home are more important than our opinions here in City West.

Having said all that, I thought the delivery was fine. Just fine. But the content was not so hot.

Waiting for Cowen

I’ll be joining the rest of the Irish political blogosphere in blogging Cowen’s address later. Suzy has retired to the comfort of her living room, but Gavin, Mark and I intend to be inside the conference hall for the speech. You can follow both live blogs here and here.

In terms of news, this Ard Fheis has been slow. The result is more attention being focused on tonight’s speech, which apparently was being redrafted up until 1 o’clock this afternoon (the press room has yet to see the embargoed copy). It’s hard to see how Cowen can live up to it. At this stage, I think he will be happy with a moderately positive reception.

That’s probably all from me ’til after the rugby. George Hook has been tweeting from the studio in Croker.

Latest poll

The FF slump continues. Labour on the rise. In tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post:

FG 30% (-3)
FF 23% (-5)
LAB 22% (+8)
GRN 6% (-2)
SF 11% (+2)
Ind 8%

Via Irish Election

FF delegates support, eh, the ‘free fees initiative’

Ah, democracy. On the face of it, UCD’s FF branch had a reasonably solid resolution calling for the Minister to Education to “maintain the ‘free fees initiative’”. But speaking in support of the measure, Naas delegate Kevin Dillon said maybe they could look at a graduate tax, which would be “fair” and “maintain our competitiveness”.

I suppose the phrase ‘free fees initiative’ in quotation marks technically refers to the current situation where the State pays students’ course fees. It’s a technical phrase that allows the party to appear to support free third level education while introducing a graduate tax would make college education even more expensive.

When it came to taking the vote, the chairman of the education session incorrectly summarized the resolution saying it “acknowledges the benefit that 3rd level education has played in building the Irish economy,” while completely ignoring the ‘meat’ of the proposal: maintaining the ‘free fees iniative’. This seemed to throw delegates and, of a packed room of 300 people, around 12 voted in favour and 4 against.

Cost of canvassing

We were supposed to doorstep Dermot Ahern (should have more on that shortly) but after much confusion and a trip around the corridors of Mansfield’s complex, it was postponed. That meant I couldn’t make it down to the ‘Voting Marquee’ in time to snap the mess made by delegates earlier when they were campaigning for election to FF’s ‘Committee of 20′ (seats on the party’s Ard Comhairle that can be contested by ordinary members). Here’s all that was left of a huge carpark that was blanketed in flyers an hour earlier. It’s hard to imagine how much was spent on printing leaflets for this in-house election.

Dermot Ahern made a boo-boo

Or at least his speechwriter did.

From Gerry Adams’ Sinn Féin Ard Fheis address last weekend:

Woody Guthrie once wrote: ‘Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen’.

From Dermot Ahern’s speech to the Justice session of the FF Ard Fheis today:

That late great American folf singer woody Guthrie sang of how ’some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.’

Poor.

FF Ard Fheis: College fees, candidate selection, and that website launch

I arrived late at City West this evening, as is my wont, but still caught most of the plenary session where Cowen defended the policy of local election candidates being selected by HQ. In fact, he managed to come down equally on both sides of that argument, saying he had “no problem” with the motion objecting to the new selection process.

Weekend prep

It seems ironic that a considerable number of bloggers will be attending the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in City West this weekend, given the annoyance caused by the Joe Raspars event on Wednesday evening. Cheesing off some of the country’s most read bloggers wasn’t the best way for FF to launch its embracing of Web 2.0.

But Twitter was all a flutter yesterday with Letterkenny town councillor Damien Blake offering to organise accreditation, while Maman Poulet and Gavin have already confirmed that they’ll be blogging from the event. As will yours truly.

Taking the scattergun approach

I don’t know why Sinn Féin always opt for the one hour TV slot for their leader’s Ard Fheis speech. It’s way too long for a television audience and who’s watching at that time on a Saturday anyway?

Ourselves alone in Ballsbridge

 

Envisioning Ireland's future at the RDS this afternoon

Only arrived here at the RDS at 12 noon but speakers have been busy calling for bankers to be jailed and Brian Goggin and Ulick McEvaddy’s houses to be “nationised”. It’s fair to say people are angry.

It’s shaping up to be an angry day in Dublin with an as yet undetermined number of people due to march through the city centre at 2 o’clock in an ICTU-organised protest. Expect quite a few SF delegates to head into town for that.

Haven’t had much time to look around the conference yet but the SF shop has some interesting merchandise that I must check out. One thing I have noticed so far is how delegates were not herded into the hall for the part of the session that went out live on RTÉ One. Fine Gael party organisers made sure all seats in the hall were filled during TV time at their conference in Wexford. There’s no shortage of SF delegates here today but the conference organisers are quite happy to let them roam about the canteen while seats lie empty inside. Of course, there won’t be an empty seat left for Gerry Adams’ presidential address at 5pm.

Now, time for a proper roam about the grounds of the Royal Dublin Society.

(And yes, I realise ‘ourselves alone’ is a mistranslation of Sinn Féin but it makes for a better headline.)

Better, but too bad no one was watching

Photo: The Labour Party.

“Well? Are you inspired?” somebody asked me just after Enda Kenny’s speech in Wexford. The tone was sarcastic but the questioner had seen quite a few of these jamborees and who was I to question his cynicism. It was my first party conference but I’ve seen plenty of leaders’ speeches on television over the years to know that these are not inspirational moments. I thought Kenny’s speech was reasonably well delivered but, in terms of content, was lacking anything approaching new or refreshing. He aimed to be stern, yet reassuring and I think he hit his mark.

The Wexford experience coloured my approach to Eamon Gilmore’s speech in Kilkenny last weekend. I was unable to attend the Labour Party’s ’special delegate conference’ but sitting at home you could see that this speech had more fire and less pragmatism than Kenny’s offering. Inspired is far too strong a word to use here but it’s fair to say I was impressed.

Trying to appear calm

Taking a leaf out of someone else’s book, Fine Gael are making a concerted effort to present their leader as a responsible and reassuring figure in these uncertain times. It marks a change of direction from the JFK-quoting, cocky personality who has lead the party for six years.

Latest poll

Sunday Business Post-Red C poll to be published tomorrow:
If there were a general election tomorrow, to which party or independent candidate would you give your first preference vote?

Fianna Fáil 30% (+4)
Fine Gael 35% (+2)
Labour 14% (-1)
Greens 5% (-1)
Sinn Féin 8% (-2)
Independent 8% (no change)

It’s the first poll without the PDs, and Fine Gael seem to have benefited most as Fianna Fáil were always going to bounce back a little after last month’s new low for them.

Great expectations

Without anybody saying it, there were high expectations for Richard Bruton’s address on the economy. When the time came, he received a standing ovation as he arrived at the podium. You can read that two ways: 1) This is a carefully stage-managed event – especially when RTÉ 1 is carrying a live feed from the main hall – so you’d expect the crowd to be enthusiastic, or 2) this event is so stage-managed that the powers that be wouldn’t plan to have an ovation for Bruton and not for the other speakers. Anyway, it seemed to be spontaneous and Bruton has been flavour of the month because of the budget. Why does it matter? Because of that poll and the fact that Kenny will be judged on his next local election results. Bruton might be asked to take the reins.

Brian Hayes has an idea

Is it not unreasonable to ask graduates to pay a contribution, deductible at source, for a number of years after they enter the labour force? One way of making a contribution could be through the existing PRSI system, it’s only one option to consider. Paying a small proportion of your income over a period after you graduate, although difficult to sell, would in my view be a fairer solution to this issue. There are many ways you could do this. Whatever system you put in place needs to be clear, straightforward and above all else encourages students to stay in college.

He says such a funding arrangement can only follow education reforms at third level, including: more  rigorous assessment of quality in teaching,  improve supports for students from poorer backgrounds, more collaboration between our colleges, longer student-lecturer contact hours, and a greater focus on the skills required by the labour force.

He’s right on at least one point: it will be difficult to sell.

Off to Wexford

I’m off to Wexford this weekend to see the Fine Gael faithful huddle around “the future Taoiseach” at their national conference. Unlike an Ard Fheis, there will be no motions to vote on at this event. Instead it’s intended to showcase the party’s frontbench ‘of all the talents’. Enda Kenny has already told the grassroots to be ready for a general election but the real focus will be on preparations for the local elections in June, where Fine Gael expect to do well.

This is my first ever party conference so excuse my naiveté if I come home convinced by the reception for the leader’s speech that a ‘blue tide’ is imminent.

Also, I know you’re thinking ‘what’s the point?’ It’s true that no policy of consequence is decided at these stage-managed events but there are some useful details to be observed. Here’s what I’ll be watching out for this weekend: