Michael McGrath: Fianna Fáil ‘out of step’ with public on abortion

The image of 31 of its TDs opposing the will of the people did damage the party, particularly in urban areas, he said. The Cork South Central TD, in an interview with the Irish Examiner, defended his right and that of his party colleagues to oppose the liberalisation of abortion.

Yet he accepts that the stance taken by a majority of Fianna Fáil TDs has impacted the party in Dublin, where it needs to win seats if it wants to be in Government.

“Fianna Fáil as a collective was very much out of step with that and there is a reality there we cannot ignore. I accept that. But we can move on from that. It is an issue like no other,” he said.

“Look it was an incredibly difficult issue for all members of the party. I found it an incredibly difficult issue personally. There may well have been damage done at the time but we can recover from that,” he said.

“I can see how it looks and I can understand why people would take that view [that it damaged us in Dublin]. In the round, it was comprehensively carried by the people, two to one.

“At the end of the day, once people were expressing their own personal, sincerely held views, nobody can have a problem with that. Obviously, people will draw inferences from the fact that the parliamentary party was strongly one way and the wider public went strongly the other way. I can see why people would draw an overall conclusion of that and of course that is something we have to be conscious of and we do need to look at that.”

But, he said, most people in the party held a firm personal view and that “has to be respected”.

He said a decision was made by the party leader in 2013 to allow a freedom of conscience vote.

“That was the correct decision. Other parties have lost members on this issue. We haven’t lost anyone. We certainly have the scars to show it was a really difficult issue, we have come out of it intact,” he said.

Mr McGrath also defended his party’s decision to extend the confidence and supply deal for a year, citing the uncertainty of Brexit as the reason for doing so without any visible concessions from the Government.

He insisted it would have been “grubby” to have sought such concessions.

“The budget for 2019 is locked in, there is no slush fund, the numbers are locked down. The futility of us getting commitments which could easily get blown away by Brexit would have looked grubby on our part to be extracting concessions which may not be deliverable. The budget is based on a benign Brexit but the odds on a no deal have shortened significantly,” he said.

However, Transport Minister Shane Ross said Fianna Fáil were “trapped” and had no choice but to extend the confidence and supply deal: “I always regarded Fianna Fáil as being somewhat trapped by the confidence and supply deal rather than Leo being trapped.”

Mr Ross said the decision to extend was not because of the national interest but because the party is weak: “I was surprised by the deal extension, I did expect there would be some movement on various issues by the Government or that Fine Gael would be forced to throw a few bones to Fianna Fáil, but it did not happen.”

“I think it showed a weakness on the part of Fianna Fáil. They can’t afford to go into an election and lose it, this is Micheál Martin’s last chance,” he said in an interview with the Irish Examiner.