Ireland’s four million voters will head to the polls on February 26, after its Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, called general elections. Kenny, who heads a coalition government between his Fine Gael party and Labour, will be seeking his second five-year term. According to opinion polls, Fine Gael is on course to hold its position as the largest party in the Republic of Ireland’s parliament in Dublin, but will likely have to rely on Labour again to form a government.
That Kenny is in such a position is remarkable, given that he has been at the helm to deliver a tough austerity medicine dictated to the previous Fianna Fail-led government by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund as conditions for a 90 billion euro (Dh368.69 billion) bailout when its banking system virtually collapsed. That financial meltdown came as a result of the global crisis and exposed the over-extended positions of the banks in the then red-hot Irish property market. That collapse saw house values halved overnight, tens of thousands left with negative equity and unemployment soar to 15 per cent.
Kenny stubbornly stuck to the austerity programme, cutting spending, hiking taxes, slashing social programmes and introducing service charges on water and other basic necessities. Now, five years on, the Irish economy is booming, its government bonds are strong, unemployment has dropped to the 8 per cent-mark, as Kenny oversees the fastest-growing economy in Europe. That growth, however, faces a threat with Britain, Ireland’s largest trading partner, threatening to leave the European Union. Kenny, for sure, will now be selling the stability message very loudly.
