Fine Gael speeds up by-election process

Afew weeks ago I wrote a story predicting that the writ for the Meath East by-election would be moved imminently.

The only thing that was delaying its calling, I was told at the time, was giving Helen McEntee the space and time to decide on entering the race. Essentially, it was her candidacy if she wanted it.

That was all fine and dandy. But the following day, when the story appeared, a senior Government figure buttonholed me and berated me for my ignorance.

'There is no way the by-election would be held in March or April,' he said. 'The election won't take place until May or June.'

That would mean a poll taking place a relatively short time before the last day it can legally be held... that is July 3.

The Government was still basking in the glory of its promissory note success on the week I wrote the story and – for some of its troops at least – it seemed a logical time to go for it in Meath East and grasp the nettle by the stem.

'No, no', pooh-poohed the senior figure - and this guy is high enough up the political hierarchy to wear a cardinal's red skullcap. 'We can't decide to hold a by-election on the basis of single event. It has to be a series of them. Besides we want to get the presidency of the European Union out of the way'.

And so, my sources for the story were lacking. I'd got it wrong, I said to myself. It wasn't the first time in my career. It won't be the last. An uncomfortable part of our job as political journalists is to predict what is going to happen in the future.

One of the glories of social media and of the internet age is that we can be reminded (very very) often and (very very) sarcastically how spectacularly we got it wrong.

And then a fortnight after I was excoriated for getting it so wrong about the byelection, my senior friend and the other cardinals essentially went ahead and decided to hold the election sooner than later. And the reason why? You've guessed it. A single event.

And it's not the promissory note. In politics, eaten bread is soon forgotten and that's ancient history now.

It was this – Fine Gael realised that if they held back until May or June, the by-election campaign would coincide with the final weeks before the new property tax kicked in on July 3. And irrespective of which candidate they ran it would have been a disaster, as people railed against the imposition of yet another tax, piled upon the rake of new taxes and charges we have faced over the past five years.

Fianna Fail was predicting an early election weeks ago on this very point. It seems the reality of it only dawned on Fine Gael in the past week or so and they did a 'reverse ferret' (to borrow a newspaper expression) very promptly indeed.

And make no mistake; the property tax will be unpopular. This week and over the coming days, householders should be getting their first indication as to how much they are going to have to stump up for the new tax, which will come into effect in the second half of the year.

The online calculator, available since last weekend, was very vague. Using only three criteria - area; type of property and if was built before or after 2000 - it has lumped all kinds of different properties into the one category.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.