They havenÕt gone away, you know - Fianna F‡il come out of the trenches

If you thought they’d gone away as a result of the massacre of Fianna Fail TDs in last Spring’s election, you were wrong ... The word is that nationally Fianna Fail workers are beginning to turn up on doorsteps around the country.

It’s early days yet but I understand that the feedback is not bad at all and that there is a growing feeling amongst some that the “toxicity label” which was attached to them is beginning to fade.

Part of this revival certainly has to be accounted for by their very good performance in Dublin in the bye-election which coincided with the Presidential election and the two referendums.

To come in second in the bye-election with Fine Gael badly lagging behind them put a bit of a spring in the step of the Fianna Fail foot soldiers, especially when Fine Gael had done so extremely badly.

All of this background is surely the reason that they have had the courage in some cases to start appearing on the doorsteps again asking about local problems and assessing the mood of the electorate, though we are miles from the test which they must pass in 2014 when the local elections will give the best single assessment of where they are going.

In the local election of 2009 they got an unerring indicator of where Fianna Fail were going and they suffered a wipe-out. In 2014 they will be coming from an artificially low base caused by the ‘09 massacre, but it was interesting this week to hear in higher circles that the morale of the party has improved hugely, especially with the reputed drop off in “toxicity”, which has also been reported by one or two people such as former minister Eamon Ó Cuív.

Fianna Fail will tread very lightly on the political ground for some time to come because of the anger of the electorate of which they got the full lash in Spring, but the by-election and the fact that Sean Gallagher with his patent Fianna Fail connections could do so well, has heartened them.

Meanwhile, over in Fine Gael the number crunchers are still scratching their heads over what went wrong with the presidential campaign of Gay Mitchell, but that contest is over and the real issue they are now looking at is how they could end up with less than ten per cent of the first preference vote, even allowing for the strong links between the electorate and the late Brian Lenihan and the genuine warmth there was towards the Lenihan memory in the constituency.

There is little doubt that if there were an election in the morning that, of course, Fine Gael would do infinitely better than a support level below ten per cent. The next Red C poll will be of particular interest in of all this, but it is interesting that the “bitching” has begun among some TDs in its now huge parliamentary party.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.