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They have decided to begin winding up and will be finished in this process by next year. This allows for time for the party's assets to be dealt with, their outstanding obligations met and any other business to be finished with. It would appear that their representatives will probably go in the directions that were expected, Harney Ind, Greelish FF, Canon FG, O'Malley (who the F cares).
In all, from an objective point of view, and obviously from the point of view of a rival tent, I must say that the astonishing thing about the PDs is that they met a huge amount of their objectives. They managed to push Ireland into an economically liberal framework with their insistance on a low tax economy. Justice was something that they set their own stamp on, in trying to achieve so much in a short time. They worked extremely well in all the fields that they had a hand in guiding, from enterprise, to agriculture, to foreign affairs. Even Health under Harney has seen such improvement that when we look at her ministry in hindsight we will see that no minister ever set out to achieve such a grand scheme of ambitious objectives. The usual slanders can be thrown at her, for the inefficiencies in the HSE and the fact that it operates like a sive, but it has to be said absolutely, that no minister ever had the fore thought as she has had. The very act of imagining a Health Service which works, and trying to achieve this with a long term plan, despite the objections and trivial arguments that really aren't the responsibility of a Health Minister but of staff on the ground, is admirable.
If the PDs were to have an epitaph, it should read "we laid foundations in many ministries, for others to stand on". I think that looking at the general satisfaction with the Dept. of Justice, Enterprise and perhaps Health in a few years, we can see that a basis for good business was set out by their ministers, which was simply followed by others once the furore of objections and insult had died down.
I considered the Progressive Democrats as a party of choice a few years ago. I was won over by FG. But every day even up to the last election, I used look at the callibre of the PD front bench with envy, as we watched at what Garrett's fallen children were achieving with a tiny party across from us. There was much crying and knashing of teeth, but I believe that in the end every political party learned a huge amount about how to and how not to do their business from the very instantaneous experiences of the PDs, and their veritable microchosim of experience in such a short period of time. Ireland will not ever be the same, and they will be remembered in a very similar vein as Clann na Phoblachta, Noel Browne and even some members of the large parties who have stood out.
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S.Behan
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