History of Fine Gael - Rainbow Coalition

Rainbow Coalition

From a highpoint in the 1980s, Fine Gael went into slight, then sharp decline. Despite Dukes launching the Tallaght Strategy in 1987, the party gained just four seats in the following general election. In 1990, its candidate in the Irish presidential election, Austin Currie, was pushed into a humiliating third place, behind the winner, Labour's Mary Robinson and Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan. This led to John Bruton replacing Alan Dukes as the party's leader. In 1989, political history was made when Fianna Fáil abandoned one of its "core principles", its opposition to coalition. Having failed in 1987 and 1989 to win outright majorities, Fianna Fáil entered into a coalition administration with the Progressive Democrats. Commentators predicted that that would leave Fine Gael isolated, with Fianna Fáil able to swap coalition partners to keep itself continuously in power. This was also precipitated by the fact that now, under its new pact with the Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fáil would now be able to, though remaining quite ideologically populist, dominate the fiscally conservative, right of centre vacuum previously dominated by Fine Gael. The rise of the Progressive Democrats diminshed Fine Gael's chances of continuing to promote the Fitzgerald-ite liberal agenda alongside its more traditional, right wing economic conservatism. This phenomenon indeed became even more apparent when, after the 1992 general election, Fianna Fáil replaced the Progressive Democrats with the Labour Party in coalition. However the Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition disintegrated in 1994, allowing Bruton to emerge as Taoiseach of a three-party Rainbow Coalition, involving Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left. This was in spite of a pre-election promise in 1992 from Bruton that Fine Gael would not enter government with the Democratic Left, a party which had links to militant Irish republicanism, as well as being left leaning in its outlook.

This Government's first policy initiative was the introduction of divorce which was ratified in a referendum by a narrow majority. John Bruton gained respect for his leadership during the campaign. The Government also oversaw the first period of unprecedented economic growth, job creation on a massive scale and Ireland's first budget surplus in over twenty five years. The Irish economy continued to thrive under Fine Gael and Labour with the introduction of the 12.5% rate of corporation tax and a modest cut in income tax.

However, the Provisional IRA ceasefire ended in 1996, stalling the peace process. Many nationalists blamed the approach taken by Taoiseach John Bruton for this setback. The three parties worked well together and fought the 1997 election on a united platform. However, despite positive opinion polls throughout its time in office, the Government was narrowly defeated in the 1997 general election. Fine Gael gained nine seats but Labour lost heavily and the Rainbow Coalition was replaced by a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition under Bertie Ahern.