Don't Kill Bill - he'll be Proved Right - and Sooner than You Think

I was at Beal Na mBláth on Sunday. I've been attending the Michael Collins ceremonies there for a number of years now,
in a working capacity. In fairness, no matter what your politics, it's an excellent annual tribute to the Great Man. It's reverent, respectful and patriotic. The garage down the road also does a fresh, juicy and most acceptably tasty hamburger, which is worth the trip in itself, and besides, the orator on the day might just say something worth reporting on.

Bill O'Herlihy was an interesting choice. When I first heard that he was to give the oration this year, I did a bit of a double take. '..Bill O'Herlihy?.. What's that about?..' Of course, a quick recap of O'Herlihys career quickly answers that one. The affable Glasheen man has had close ties to Fine Gael for the bones of forty years. He was once an advisor on Press & Media to none other than Garret 'The Good' himself. His PR company has regularly given strategic advice to FG over the decades.

His 'advice' at Beal Na mBláth on Sunday, however, has left party stalwarts scratching their heads, and as they left to return to their cars, you could see them, like cattle, chewing on the cud of what he had just told them to do.

Bill O'Herlihy reckons its time to bury the hatchet with the arch-enemy, Fianna Fáil. It's time, he told the faithful on Sunday, to leave the Civil War behind, join forces and work together. He told them, in no uncertain terms, that there's not "the width of a sheet of tissue paper" between their two policy platforms. He wants them to form a Coalition, perhaps even as soon as after the next election.

My friends, the time is coming, and when it comes, we should not be at all surprised to hear it has arrived. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are on a path towards coalition. The courtship has begun. The mating dance, although in its first very tentative stages, is underway. The two sworn enemies of old are starting to behave like a pair of cranky old cats begrudgingly realising that they might actually be able to make a home together, and, horror of horrors, even share a basket.

You'll notice that since O'Herlihys speech, not one senior figure has come out and said '..it'll never happen..'

Those that were willing to take our calls on Monday (most didn't reply, though some are away) would merely says that '..at the end of the day, the people will decide at the next election..'. It's not a definite Yes or No - they're politicians, what do you expect - but it's the closest thing to '..we're thinking about it..' that I've ever heard.

Of course, they're actually right. It's the voters who will eventually decide the makeup of the next Dáil, or any future Dáil for that matter. It's the one great thing about our form of democracy. We get the people we vote for - and I'm prepared to wager that when the next election comes, and the votes are counted, the numbers will stack up.

At the last by-election in Meath East, the FF and FG candidates between them won 70% of the first preference vote. Helen McEntee, who won her late fathers seat, and Thomas Byrne swept the rest of the field aside. Every weekend we are bombarded with another opinion poll. While the papers focus on who's ahead and by how much, I've been watching how much of the vote the Big Two might get between them. It makes interesting reading.

In May, a Red C poll gave both FF and FG 26% support. That's 52% between them. A more recent set of figures saw the 'Old Firm' with 51% combined support. There have been others. Polls are polls, and are only, as the saying goes, 'a snapshot in time', but at this stage I've seen a fair few snapshots, and I can see a pattern emerging.

In 2011, Fianna Fáil were mauled, mangled and mutilated by an angry electorate. They weren't so much kicked to touch as beaten into oblivion. However, they seem to have stabilised themselves. To give credit where its due, they've admitted that they messed up, and said they will work hard for the voters forgiveness. Whether they'll get it, I don't know, but the polls would seem to indicate that while they're still very much on the 'Naughty Step', they will eventually be invited down off the stairs and back into the Living Room.

Another thing the polls are telling us, is that Labour are next in line for a hammering. They tell us furthermore that Sinn Féin appear to have peaked, and that the Independents & 'Others' are losing it a bit. While a single poll is a 'snapshot' in time, my old friend and 96FM's ever astute political analyst, Finbarr Kiely, taught me a long time ago to watch polls in sequence, and not view them individually - to watch the trends, not the actual numbers.

Bearing all that in mind, I'm going to make a prediction here and now. I predict that Fine Gael & Fianna Fáil certainly will form a Government together, and sooner than we think. The next election, if things run to schedule, is due in the Spring of 2016. With the size of the Dáil being cut from 166 to 158 seats, the magic number will be 80 seats - make that 79, if you include the Ceann Comhairle.

Fianna Fáil will gain seats. They will recover some marginals and snatch back some of those that they lost to Independents and others in 2011. I won't put a precise number on it, but I can see them rising from their current 19, to perhaps the low 30s. Fine Gael will lose seats - with marginals up for grabs, and the fallout from things like the Abortion row. Labour are in trouble. They won 37 seats last time out, but I can see over half of them lost, if not more. Sinn Féin will hold their own, and might gain a seat or two, but no more. A lot of the Independents will be 'one term wonders', and will be replaced by others. That's politics.

I can see a situation presenting itself where the State of The Parties will be such that only a combination of FG & FF will actually 'have the numbers' for a workable majority. Unless there's a really massive swing away from FG, similar to what occurred with FF in 2011, it's hard to see them losing out on a second term in Government. The only question is - 'with who?'.

And then, my friends, it'll be a case of '..Don't mention The War..'