Dublin - As Ireland's Progressive Democrats (PDS) ground to
a halt at the weekend, it seemed fitting, given the collapse of the
low-taxation Celtic Tiger economy, that the party which peddled
liberal free-market economic policies was 'no longer politically
viable.'
One of the junior parties in the Irish coalition government, the
PDs, which have just two seats in the lower house or Dail, voted to
wind up the party by 201 votes to 161.
In government, the PDs campaigned successfully for the
low-taxation policies which helped create Ireland's economic boom,
which began in the mid-1990s and lasted for over a decade.
Tax reform will form the cornerstone of the party's legacy, but
the party started out with the aim of 'breaking the moulds' in Irish
politics when it was founded in 1985 by Desmond O'Malley, who had
been expelled from Ireland's Fianna Fail party for his refusal to toe
the party line.
At a time of crippling taxation, when as O'Malley saw it 'national
morale was at an all-time low,' other disaffected politicians from
the country's two leading parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, joined
the queue to form the new party.
These included Michael McDowell and Mary Harney, who went on to
become the first Irish woman to lead any of the major parties when
she took over from O'Malley as leader in 1993.
With internecine rows over the Northern Irish conflict and issues
such as abortion and divorce dominating Irish politics while the
economy was failing, the PDs represented a welcome change for a jaded
Irish electorate.
The party advocated a peaceful approach to the conflict in
Northern Ireland, tax reform and a clear distinction between church
and state.
Back in February 1986, when polls showed that the new party had
gained the support of 25 per cent of the electorate, it seemed the
PDs were achieving their mould-breaking aims.
The party won 14 seats in the general election of February 1987
and became the third largest party in the Dail.
In June 1989, they entered a coalition government with Fianna Fail
only to pull out in 1992 after a row with Fianna Fail over evidence
to a tribunal investigating corruption in the meat industry.
The party won 10 seats in the ensuing election, but remained out
of government for five years.
In 1997, despite a disastrous campaign based on social welfare
cuts aimed at single mothers and cutbacks in the public sector, the
PDs had the correct numbers to form a coalition with Fianna Fail with
party leader Harney as deputy prime minister.
The party remained in government as a coalition partner until 2002
when Harney led the party to renewed success, doubling its number of
seats to eight.
It formed another coalition with Fianna Fail, with Harney becoming
health minister in 2004. Party leadership passed on to Michael
McDowell in 2006 after a behind-closed-doors spat. McDowell became
deputy prime minister.
The party's decision to remain in coalition with Fianna Fail until
the 2007 general election despite damaging revelations about then
prime minister Bertie Ahern's financial affairs may well have been
its undoing.
A party which had always campaigned on probity in public life was
seen to hesitate, threaten and do nothing when faced with allegations
of corruption at the highest governmental level.
In the 2007 election, the parliamentary party shrank from eight to
just two, including Harney, who is to remain in office as an
independent.
Harney, whose acceptance of the Health Ministry, the poisoned
chalice of Irish government, may also have sounded the death knell
for her party, was pragmatic in her approach to the demise of the
PDs.
'You can't sustain a political party without the ability to elect
people to the Dail,' she told the Sunday Tribune newspaper.
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