Stick or twist: when will the Government call an election?

The Coalition parties still remain confident this Government will see out its full term in office.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Fine Gael parliamentary party this week that he wants the Government to see out its term, which means an election very close to Easter in April of 2016.

The Labour Party is of the same mind. When Joan Burton became Tánaiste she made it very clear that it would take 18 months for her to turn things around. This week her senior advisers have been maintaining that line, saying all their plans are directed at 2016.

One Government adviser put it this way: he said the election will be about which parties get to set the questions. The Coalition parties are confident they will determine the agenda of the general election. For that to happen, both need time, and that means a year at the very least.

And yet the two main Opposition parties are effectively on election footing from here on in. Fianna Fáil will begin to convene its selection conventions before Christmas and is aiming to have all its candidates chosen by April or May. Sinn Féin is moving even quicker. It intends to have all its candidates selected and ratified by Christmas.

When it is put to senior people in both parties, they all predict 2015. Fianna Fáil is of the view that the election will be held in the autumn of next year, soon after the Budget. Sinn Féin reckons it could happen at any time and say that the bungling and mistakes of the Government this year has shorn it off much of its authority. With no evidence that it is getting its act together, it reckons the party is only one crisis short of the Coalition falling apart.

There were few in February 2011 who could have predicted that this Government would be facing such existential threats. Between them Fine Gael and Labour had the largest majority of a Government in recent political history.

The loss of sovereignty and the vicious recession were the dominant themes in 2011. Both parties have succeeded in steering the State out of the grip of the Troika and out of recession - the State recorded extraordinary growth figures this year.

But despite that apparent stability of numbers and surefootedness on the big economic picture, the Government has been flailing around all year, because of a series of self-inflicted - and eminently predictable - crises.

Some were not avoidable. Nobody likes new taxes and charges, and people have had a slew of them in recent years, as well as many cuts. The water charges represented the tipping point between grudging but resigned acceptance and revolt. It was never going to be popular and there was always going to be a section that would refuse to pay no matter what. But a potent mixture of poor communications and the perception of nest-feathering by Irish Water allowed the opposition to control the narrative. The Government had its eye off the ball and by the time it moved to salvage the situation, it was almost too late.

All of that has made the Coalition look vulnerable and unstable. It’s an irony that some governments with huge majorities (Fianna Fáil in 1977, and Fianna Fáil and Labour in 1992) are the most flakey and fickle. Indeed, some of the strongest and most successful administrations in the State were minority governments dependent on the support of Independents and smaller parties.

Politics, unlike the law, does not do reasonable foreseeability very well. Even the soundest majority can be topped by, to quote Harold Macmillan, "events, dear boy, events".

To ensure its survival, you can be sure the Government will introduce no more new taxes or charges. For instance, the broadcasting charge, which was to replace the TV licence, has been long-fingered indefinitely.

And you can be sure the Coalition has sent out its sappers to defuse any possible political land mines that might trigger public anger and disquiet. That could be some other ill-thought out bit of parsimony in the health service or the proposed new postal code or something that will provoke the ire of teachers or gardaí.

In as far as possible, the Government strategy for the next 12 months will be to keep everything on an even keel and to hit nobody with surprises.

Will it last until 2016? An autumn election could be attractive for Fine Gael especially if there is growth next year and the Coalition decided to go the political route in the Budget and be flaithiúil to its core supporters. Labour would not be as enthusiastic but might be persuaded, especially if the Government had put some of this year’s controversies behind it.

For what its worth, that remains my prediction: an election in the autumn of 2015.