Ireland’s safe pair of hands

Date: 28/03/1996

JUST over 20 years ago, young Labour Party activist Dick Spring voted against Irish membership of the then European Economic Community. Now, as Ireland's minister for foreign affairs, he is at the heart of negotiations on the Union's future.

During Ireland's six-month EU presidency in the second half of this year, Spring and his Irish colleagues will be in the driving seat, responsible for steering the Union safely through the longest stage of the Intergovernmental Conference which opens this weekend in Turin.

The EU is not the only issue on which 45-year-old Spring has changed his mind during a meteoric public career which has made him arguably the most influential politician in Ireland, able to make or break governments.

His growing authority has been accompanied by a discreet trimming of his distinctive moustache, reducing the scope for Groucho Marx-style caricatures.

“He has an agenda. He controls it and gets what he wants. No one else can do that. He is a most effective politician and anything he does, he does well. If you get in a dealing session with him, he is very difficult to beat,” says one source who has followed Spring's career closely.

Spring comes from a political background. His father, Dan, was a member of the Dáil (Irish parliament) for several decades and the young Spring, after training as a barrister, followed in his footsteps when he was elected in 1981.

Although he became Irish Labour Party leader the following year, it was not until he was in opposition between 1987 and 1993 that Spring firmly established himself as a politician of stature. He consolidated his, and Labour's, reputation for ability and integrity in a series of withering attacks on the behaviour of the ruling Fianna Fáil.

He then shocked his admirers by forming the first Labour/Fianna Fáil coalition in the history of the Irish republic in January 1993.

That uneasy partnership ended in 1994 when Labour established a government with its more traditional ally, Fine Gael (FG), despite the scorn which senior Labour members reserved for FG leader, and now Prime Minister, John Bruton.

But close Spring watchers detect continuity in the hard bargains he has struck when in government. These have led to greater secularisation and modernisation of a traditionally conservative Irish society as homosexuality has been decriminalised and divorce made possible.

The clearest personification of the winds of change blowing through the land was the election of the youthful and energetic Mary Robinson, championed by Labour, as president of Ireland.

Spring is encouraging the country to confront the role it should play in a rapidly-changing world - a debate to which he gave extra impetus this week with the publication of a government White Paper on foreign policy.

Nowhere is that change likely to be greater than in Ireland's dealings with the Union. For years, Brussels has been considered as a ready source of funds. Those days are likely to be numbered as the country climbs the EU wealth league and as less well-off states from Central and Eastern Europe join the Union.

Spring does not share the Euro-fervour of former Irish Foreign and Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald, but he is rock solid in his certainty that the country's future lies in the Union.

“He reflects a more pragmatic view of the EU and has a very clear idea of what the Union and national politicians must deliver for constituents. I have no doubt he will relish the job of chairing the IGC. He is especially good at finding compromises and then holding the line,” observes one Brussels diplomat.

Spring's new EU duties will come on top of his existing responsibility for Irish foreign policy in general and Anglo-Irish issues in particular, his deputy premiership, leadership of the Labour Party and commitments to his North Kerry constituents.

Asked how he reconciles these disparate obligations, Spring pretends to be a footballer juggling a ball from head to shoulders and says: “It is all about keeping the various balls in the air. Isn't that the trick?”

It is a trick Spring has perfected over the years. But those juggling skills were not always evident and their absence almost brought his political career to an end.

At the 1987 general election, he had already been Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) for five years, but that cut little ice with his North Kerry constituents. In a nail-biting count, he was re-elected by just four votes.

The lesson was not lost on Spring. He explains: “Our politics are so small, you are expected to knock on doors. When I knocked on doors after the near fatality of 1987 people said: 'Thank you for coming. We were not sure you were interested last time as we did not see you'.”

He now spends every weekend he can in his local constituency.

The single most demanding item on Spring's agenda is Northern Ireland. He estimates that the issue took up at least one-third of his time last year as hopes ebbed and flowed in the search for some form of lasting peace in the province.

There is little doubt that the complex Northern Irish situation, rather than the EU, has until now been at the top of Spring's agenda. It has also brought him into close contact with US President Bill Clinton.

In 1995, the two met on almost half a dozen occasions and were only prevented from playing golf together during Clinton's brief visit to Ireland last year when the US president had to go to Germany to see off American troops bound for Bosnia.

Spring's links with the US go back a long way. He took summer jobs there as a student, his wife Kristi is American and the Spring family frequently visits her parents in Maryland.

His political posts have helped Spring establish a growing circle of international contacts. He has a close friendship with former Spanish Foreign Minister and current NATO Secretary-General Xavier Solana and is on particularly good terms with Dutch and German Foreign Ministers Hans van Mierlo and Klaus Kinkel.

Unlike an earlier generation of hail-fellow-well-met Irish politicians, Spring is more reserved. Some put this down to his North Kerry roots, explaining: “He likes to hold his cards close to his chest and not to waste words. He has a black sense of humour, tending to say something and then you find he is pulling your leg.”

Nor does the Labour leader suffer fools gladly. “He can be very kind and gracious, and then take the ground from under you with a single glance,” says one observer. But others say the sudden changes of mood are attributable in part to the painful back injury Spring suffered in a bad motor accident in the early Eighties.

The parallel challenges of striking an Anglo-Irish deal while running the EU presidency will provide an interesting test of Spring's diplomatic skills.

He is likely to come under pressure from some of his EU colleagues to take a hard line with the UK if the country proves unnecessarily obdurate in the IGC. But Spring is aware that too hard a line could jeopardise bilateral relations between Dublin and London.

Spring himself is keen to defuse attempts to present the process as a battle. He recently told an audience in Finland: “The IGC is ultimately an event in which there must be no winners and no losers amongst the member states. Ultimately, the only winner should be Europe itself.”

Away from politics, Spring takes a keen interest in sport. He won three international rugby caps as full back for Ireland in 1979, played Gaelic football for Kerry in 1974 and hurled for his county in 1979. He is also a keen golfer.

Despite these achievements, Spring cannot avoid being reminded of the galling moment in 1979 when he dropped the ball in front of the Irish posts and let Wales in for the clinching try in an international rugby match. As a result, the Welsh won the match 24-21.

Politically, Spring now displays a much safer pair of hands and few expect him to suffer a similar uncharacteristic lapse of concentration in the months ahead.