The unstoppable Jackie Healy-Rae had an interesting story to tell on Radio Kerry in December 1999.
The presenter, Niall Madigan, asked him to confirm that he was one day late for the Dublin-Killarney train and a ministerial limousine took him from Leinster House to Heuston Station.
Let’s leave the rest to the late Healy-Rae of famed Kilgarvan: “Well, there’s no doubt or doubt, that’s happened. But I’ll tell you a better one than that… I don’t know if I should say it all, but it looks like I’ll have to now.
“I passed by the Curragh of Kildare one day, I was given permission to leave the house, that everything was in order, and within about 20 or 25 minutes there was a helicopter overhead in the air telling me to enter a garage. drive until I am taken back to Dublin to vote.
“And unfortunately as we were just preparing to move in, I got word on the cell phone that it was all right, the thing had been canceled at the house above, so I didn’t have to get in the helicopter.” go and go back,” he said.
Jackie Healy-Rae died in 2014, but the political house he built is still alive.
Independent TDs, like the glue that holds tottering governments together, come and go in waves, and are often the center of speculation and debate about “dogs wagging”. They were a major factor in the Inter-Party government of 1948, later very discreetly supporting the Fianna Fáil minority governments for Taoisigh Éamon de Valera and Seán Lemass.
In the chaotic period of three elections in 1981/82, they were on display again, with Tony Gregory selling his support for an inner-city Dublin development package and Limerick socialist Jim Kemmy pulling the plug on Garret’s budget. FitzGerald pulled above the VAT on children’s shoes.
But the latest crop of 21 Independents and Other TDs in today’s Dáil owes much to the fame of Jackie Healy-Rae and his colleagues Harry Blaney, Thomas Gildea of Donegal and Mildred Fox of Wicklow. The quartet was the third leg of the chair that supported Bertie Ahern’s 1997-2002 Fianna Fáil-led coalition, which defied all pundits and served a full five-year term.
The privilege of these four Independent TDs from 1997-2002 sometimes amounted to just the first chance to announce goodies for their respective backers. But the legend of their crucial power grew, and in the fall of 1999—two years after the scheme was introduced—Jackie Healy-Rae was able to casually answer “just a few millin” when asked how much he’d secured for a South Bridge project. – Kerry.
It meant that many voters, in many other constituencies, decided they wanted their “own Healy-Rae” to secure the hospital, build that bridge, fill the potholes, and take home other goodies.
The last time out, on February 7, 2020, Irish voters returned 21 Independents and others to the Dáil.
And last week, when former Fine Gael minister Joe McHugh jumped the Fine Gael ship over the mica compensation scheme, the current three-party coalition technically lost its majority of more than 80 TDs in the 160-seat Dáil. Last September, Fianna Fáil lost to their Sligo-Leitrim TD, Marc MacSharry, and in May, the Green Party lost Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello.
Suddenly, the spotlight was once again on those Independents and Others, nine of whom had boosted the number of three-party coalitions in Micheál Martin’s election to Taoiseach on June 27, 2020.
It was reported on Sunday that the Taoiseach reached out to certain Independent TDs and bought last minute fire insurance for Tuesday’s no-confidence vote against the Coalition, driven by Sinn Féin. Mary Lou McDonald, emphasizing she would never tell another non-Sinn Féin TD how to vote, urged the Independents not to support the government.
Two strong-willed Independents, Marian Harkin of Sligo-Leitrim and Matt Shanahan, made it clear that their decisions would be guided by the interests of voters.
In the end, the government won when the Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party “exiles” stayed with their former and perhaps future parliamentary colleagues. Four independent TDs also voted with the government – Michael Lowry, Cathal Berry, Peter Fitzpatrick and Seán Canney.
This will bring the focus back to the promises they may or may not have made for this good deed. But in the longer term, in a changing political landscape, there is speculation that the power of Independents may well have reached its peak.