Big questions on the horizon for the political year ahead

It’s the big political question as we head out into 2018 – will there be a general election before the year is out? Or will this year’s poll of the people be a contest for the Aras instead? There is one certain referendum – on abortion – for 2018; throw in a possible Presidential election; likely plebiscites in Dublin and Cork; and slightly slimmer chances of several other referendums.

Add the fact that there is always the lurking possibility of a general election – and there may be plenty of opportunities to visit a ballot box near you in the coming year.

Let’s start with the odds on a general election – and 2018 seems slightly more likely than 2019.

For one thing, the confidence and supply agreement comes to an end at Budget time in October.

If it’s not renewed the Government will face a period of drift and uncertainty, in which the rug can be pulled from under it at any time.

There are always the possibilities of ‘events’, or opinion polls (bad or good), or an irretrievable breakdown in relations – either between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance, or between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

But against all that you have to look at the bigger picture.

Irish politics is still fragmented almost a decade after the crash and the two biggest parties are struggling to restore their previous stature.

Opinion polls suggest that Fine Gael is stronger at present but my own instinct is that Fianna Fáil will make much larger gains in the next election, unless there is a political calamity about to befall it, or unless Leo Varadkar proves to be the most popular, greatest, enigmatic, lovable Taoiseach ever.

In either event, I would agree with the general view that neither party will be strong enough to form a coalition government on its own – unless one decides to bit the bullet and jump into bed with Sinn Féin.

And so the most likely prospect for after the next election is the Third Way, the new formula that both parties have found to avoid going into coalition with each other, and to keep their identities strong.

Both know that this looks the more likely scenario. But then voters might take a dim view of the arrangement into the long term and punish one of the two big parties – making them more reluctant to return to such an agreement.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.