Leader hoping for the last laugh

Date: 28/11/1996

JOHN Bruton's most remarkable trait is his laugh; detractors say hyena comparisons are unkind - to hyenas.

But supporters argue that this affable man, who will take the chair at next weekend's summit of EU leaders in Dublin, does well to laugh at everything given the sorrows he had to endure in order to reach the pinnacle of Irish politics.

Two years ago, kinder assessments of the Irish prime minister were that he was a man born for second place and very lucky to be prime minister. Harsher critics dismissed him as an accident-prone klutz saved from oblivion by a bizarre turn of events.

Next week's summit is thus hugely important to Bruton - on the home front as an opportunity to continue building his own late-blossoming political reputation and on the European front as a chance to boost that of his country.

Bruton fervently wants Ireland to be perceived as having acted capably and honourably during its six-month term at the helm of the EU vessel.

For both reasons, a deal on the operation of the single currency and signs of solid progress in the Intergovernmental Conference negotiations at the Dublin summit are crucial to the Irish premier.

Success will allow him to build on the kudos gleaned from recent events such as acclaimed visits to Ireland by US President Bill Clinton and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Bruton's own recent address to the joint US houses of congress.

To understand Bruton and the ups and downs of his political career, one needs to understand the way Ireland's party system works.

Bruton is head of the country's second largest political party, Fine Gael, which was originally an amalgam of moderate revolutionaries and parliamentary nationalists, and is now allied to the European Christian Democrats.

The largest party continues to be Fianna Fáil, currently in opposition. Its early members were the more hard-line nationalists, opposed to the 1922 settlement which led to the foundation of the Irish state. The party is also distinguished by a populism comparable with the French Gaullists, with whom it has a European alliance.

Next comes the trade-union founded Labour Party, which has long been overshadowed by the dominance of the other two and has only recently made an impact under the current Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Dick Spring. It is quite at home with the European Socialists.

Finally, two small newcomers to the political scene are the Progressive Democrats and the Democratic Left. The first broke from the two main parties, but its efforts to set a new centre-right political agenda have only had a limited impact. The second emerged from the ranks of the IRA radicals who eschewed violence to pursue leftist class issues by constitutional means.

The pace of economic, social and political change in Ireland since it joined the EU in 1973 means the traditional parties can no longer command a majority. Since 1973 there have been a series of coalitions along European lines. In late 1994, John Bruton - after years of waiting in the wings - finally formed the unlikely 'Rainbow coalition' along with Labour and the Democratic Left, which is now considered solid but accident-prone.

It is against this backdrop, dictated by parliamentary arithmetic and the intricacies of a proportional voting system, that Bruton has to operate.

Given the huge domestic political demands he faces, compounded by the problems north of the Irish border, it is fortunate that the Irish premier has always had a huge interest in, and background knowledge of, European issues.

As a result, he will not have to devote too much time ahead of next weekend's summit to familiarising himself with the key issues on the agenda.

A lifetime supporter of European integration, Bruton has worked closely with other senior Christian Democrats from across the Union for over a decade and is well known to senior EU politicians such as Kohl, Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene and European Commission President Jacques Santer.

Since taking office, Bruton has continued to build on these contacts and is known to be rated highly, by Kohl especially.

EU officials expect the Irish prime minister to have prepared the ground very thoroughly before the mid-December summit. “He will know well in advance what each leader's bottom line is so that he can push hard for agreement,” said one.

When Bruton's political career began as Ireland's brightest and youngest member of the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann) in 1969, few would have been surprised by the idea that he would one day chair an EU leaders' summit. Indeed, few would have predicted that the path he had to tread to get there would be so long or so rocky.

Bruton has literally spent half his life in the Dáil and has studied and written about parliamentary reform. After addressing the European Parliament in September, he was completely unfazed by questions afterwards about the poor turnout of MEPs to hear his speech.

“There were between half and a third there at various stages. That is as good a turnout as you would have in any European chamber on your average day,” he said, joking that he favoured the Westminster practice of limiting chamber space to encourage members to regard getting a seat as something to be prized.

But although Bruton's curriculum vitae charts an upward achievement curve, a shadow has long been cast over him.

Part of it relates to his failure as finance minister in 1982 to get his annual budget estimates endorsed by the Dáil. In a minority administration, reliant on fickle independent deputies, his decision to tax children's footwear begged rejection.

But his party soon returned to government and Bruton again successfully held senior ministerial office. But it was also during this 1983-87 period that the seeds of a costly conflict with Spring, Labour leader and Bruton's government coalition partner, were sown.

The fact that the two men are now working side-by-side results from sheer political necessity.

“Spring saw him as a right-wing begrudger at that time and much later. Their alliance now is solely driven by pragmatism and Dáil arithmetic,” notes one Dublin commentator with the bluntness that often characterises Irish public life.

Spring had earlier rebuffed Bruton's coalition overtures after a close election in November 1992 which saw Labour throw in its lot with Fianna Fáil.

Bruton's poorly-received performance as opposition leader led to an attempted coup from the back-benches and the low point of his long career. Despite fighting back doggedly and successfully, he still remained tainted.

Then in November 1994 the bizarre happened, as the government broke up over the handling of a horrific child abuse case involving a Catholic priest. All parties wanted to avoid an election, but it took weeks of speculation and secret horse-trading before Bruton's Rainbow coalition emerged.

Doubts about Bruton's right to be prime minister persisted to the end. Despite his party's inferior numbers, many felt that Spring was better equipped for the job.

This extract from the diary of a former Irish government press secretary dated 7 December 1994, summed it all up: “The wheel of fortune has stopped turning, and the little ball rests at last on the blue Bruton spot. The no-hoper will form the 'Rainbow' on his own terms ... and good luck to him.”

Two years and one week later, John Bruton will be hell-bent on showing everyone that he has finally stepped from the shadow of misfortune to become a fitting winner.

If he succeeds, his extraordinary laughter will shake the refurbished rafters of Dublin Castle.