Fast-growing new Irish party

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 16

Fast-growing new Irish party

By

MARCUS ELIASON,

of the Associated Press, in Dublin

The lecture hall at University College, Dublin, is packed to the aisles with students listening raptly and applauding frequently as Mary Harney leads Ireland’s sacred cows one by one to the slaughter.

“A lot of nonsense” is her epithet for such hallowed totems as unification with Northern Ireland, using the Irish language for Government business, the privileged position of the Catholic Church, and the old party loyalties forged in Ireland’s civil war more than 60 years ago. The 32-year-old Irishwoman might have been taken for another campus activist, but she is a member of Parliament and founder of a new political party which strikes a responsive chord with its promise to “break the mould of Irish politics.” The political establishment is dismissive, calling the Progressive Democratic Party a flash in the pan; but the party and its leaders, Desmond O’Malley and Ms Harney, are quickly building a following. Ths party emerges at a f ime of 17 per cent unemployment, broken promises of economic recovery, and widespread disenchantment with both big parties. Its main appeal is to the young, rapidly becoming the biggest voting bloc -in this country of 3.5 million people.

There is a palpable sense of a country at the crossroads, opening up to the outside world and transforming from rural society to industrialised urban life. “We are the new Europeans,” proclaims a poster at Dublin International. Airport under a picture of smiling young Irish college graduates. An opinion poll at the beginning of February gave the Progressive Democrats 25 per cent of the vote, two points ahead of the ruling Fine Gael Party of the Prime Minister, Dr Garret FitzGerald. Translated into actual votes, the poll would give the Progressive Democrats a commanding position in any coalition.

The opposition Fianna Fail headed the poll with 42 per cent, but its ranks are being thinned by defectors to the Progressive Democrats. The party now claims 18,000 members, including about 4000 who quit Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail’s leader, the former Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, no longer looks unbeatable in 1987. “The politician of the moment is Mr O’Malley. The eyes of the electorate are on him,” editorialised the respected “Irish Times," which commissioned the poll. The Progos, as they are nicknamed, announced their forma-

tion in late December.

Within days, in spite of the traditionally rigid discipline of Irish party politics, two Fianna Fail members of the 166-seat Dail (Parliament) joined the Progos. Also defecting was a senator from the Labour Party, the junior partner in Fine Gael’s ruling coalition.

From the Travellers’ Hotel in Castlebar to the Scouts Hall in Tipperary North, the Progos preach to capacity crowds. Hundreds line up afterward to enroll. The impetus for forming the party came last November when Mr Haughey denounced the An-glo-Irish agreement. It was an unpopular move. Most of the public broadly welcomed an accord it felt could help bring peace to Northern Ireland, by giving Dublin a say in the administration of the troubled British povince. Ms Harney defied Mr Haughey and voted in the Dail for the agreement. She was expelled from Fianna Fail and founded the Progressive Democrats with O’Malley. He is a 47-year-old lawyer and a former Cabinet Minister expelled from Fianna Fail after a previous feud with Mr Haughey. Ms Harney opened a recent university lecture by declaring that the 1921-23 civil war which gave birth to Fine Gael and . i

Fianna Fail was “no longer relevant to the vast majority of people in this country.” People continued to vote for one party simply out of distaste for the other, she said, declaring to applause that it was "a nonsense that must be ended.”

After another “nonsense” directed at the use of Irishlanguage terms in political discourse, she moved on to Northern Ireland. She denounced nationalists who “wave the green flag and shout “up with United Ireland,’ and all that nonsense” instead of seeking ways to end the crisis.

The Progressive Democrats’ lack of detailed policies prompted Ms Harney to give vague answers to some questions. To one student’s question on the economy, all Ms Harney could offer was a free-mafket capitalist vision of people getting off welfare and being given a chance to earn their own way. She said afterwards that experts are preparing proposals for a party convention in May. “We have grown very fast,” she said. “It’s a frightening thing, in that it indicates quite clearly the level of disenchantment and disillusionment with the available political choices.”