Labour's vigorous hand-wringing may not wash well with the voters

The Fianna Fail-Green Party coalition was in its dying days on January 11, 2011.

The Green Party leader and Environment Minister reflected that, the last time he had held a major party press conference, proceedings were dominated by a controversy jauntily called 'garglegate'.

That was about allegations that Taoiseach Brian Cowen might have been a bit hungover or worse for wear on an early morning radio interview.

Three months on, and now all the questions were all about the Taoiseach golfing with bank executives. "And now we're talking about 'golfgate,'" John Gormley said wearily.

Yes, it is a universal truth that the junior coalition partner rarely gets fair ball. Among the disadvantages of being the smaller government party is the time is eaten up explaining your attitude to the latest screw up perpetrated by the bigger crowd.

It is embarrassing and potentially damaging. But let's not forget that dealing with the "other crowd's mess" also eats into the smaller party's sales time and media exposure.

To give just one concrete example, Education Minister Jan O'Sullivan could have been pushing her own message on a core Labour policy area. But instead she was jinking through the minefield of "IMMAgate" or should that be "Seanadgate"?

Labour do not have 101 choices of media strategy to deal with this fine mess created by the Taoiseach and perhaps others who have so far failed to explain themselves.

Happily, we are still in the pre-water charges era, so the Labour politicians are busy with regular hand-washing on every media outing.

"The nomination is a matter for the Fine Gael party, its leader and its members. It is not a matter for the Labour Party, but rather it is for Fine Gael," Labour leader Joan Burton told the Dail on Wednesday.

That line, or words to that effect, have been deployed by all other Labour people as they recall the ritual of Pontious Pilate.

Labour are also only fractionally happier in themselves on the ethical issues arising from the appointment of Fine Gael's Seanad candidate to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. They have been a little less blatant than FG in the board appointment stakes - but they have had their moments too.

Yesterday Jan O'Sullivan talked up the other element of the Labour managing-through strategy. It was an insistence that the Government must move to using a body like the Public Appointments Service to handle state board nominations in future.

We are tempted to continue with religious metaphors and speak of St Augustine wishing for "virtue, but not yet". It is also tempting to say that this was the kind of approach promised by both government parties when they came into office in March 2011.

And that last point may well be the nub of Labour's problems as they liberally ladle the water over their hands.

Fine Gael can at the limit live with comparisons that they are taking a leaf from Fianna Fail's book. But Labour is the party which has laid much emphasis on ethics.

On that basis, they could, in extremis and for odd reasons of cultural expectation, suffer more damage than Fine Gael on this one.

For the immediate future, except for a few vocal exceptions, the Labour TDs and Senators are expected to collude in the election of John McNulty to Seanad Eireann and then they will hope to move on.