The furore and then the rapid U-turn this week on special needs assistants (SNAs) told us a couple of important things about this Government, but also about the deeper rules of Irish politics.
The first is that the Coalition has retained a robust capacity for self-inflicted political damage. Anyone around Government who thought a move that would see hundreds of schools lose special needs assistants would pass without controversy should probably be in another line of work.
The initial explanation was there had been a “review”. As if the parents already protesting outside some schools would think: “Oh, a review. Well, that’s fine then. I’m sure it’s for the best. I’ll fold up my placard and go home.”
In the Dáil, Mary Lou McDonald, with her keen eye for political vulnerability, was on it like a flash.
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“This is a cruel decision,” she told Micheál Martin. “These supports are life-changing for so many children and now the Government will pull the rug from under their futures.”
It goes without saying that the Taoiseach responded by telling McDonald he was the minister for education who introduced special needs assistants in the first place.
Inevitably, the brakes were slammed on and the reallocation of posts was put on hold. That was even before the righteous fulminations of Fianna Fáil TDs at the parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday evening.
Government was unable to say if the schools due to get new SNA posts under the reallocation plan would now receive them. A review of the review is under way.
It was, in the words of one insider, “a massive own goal”. Others were less polite. Several senior figures gave me a version of: do we not have enough mess to be dealing with without shooting ourselves in the effing foot?
Given the nature of the SNA system whereby they are allocated to help with the special needs of children, not just assigned to schools permanently, reviews and reallocations will always be necessary as the youngsters move on. Everyone accepts this.
Everyone also knows that schools game the system a bit. In addition, as the Government was at pains to point out, there are about 25,000 SNAs in the system, which, given there are only about 80,000 teachers, is a huge number.
But all of that makes the political screw-up worse. As French statesman Talleyrand once said, it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.
Needless to say fingers were pointed at the Civil Service for a lack of political nous.
There is always a private (though very rarely public) tendency on the part of politicians to blame civil servants when something like this happens.
Sometimes they’re right – the mandarinate sometimes throws up initiatives and policies for which it is prepared to fight to the last drop of their minister’s blood.
But any politician who doesn’t know this and doesn’t proof things politically only has themselves to blame.
(And any new minister who doesn’t watch all episodes of the BBC sitcom Yes, Minister before reading their department’s briefing notes is looking for trouble.)
You need to prepare the ground very carefully if you are taking something away from people. We’ll come back to that.
The second thing that was illustrative about the episode was how quickly the Government folded when it encountered political resistance.
You can look at this in two ways: one, at least they had the wit to see the writing on the wall, or, two, is there no decision not open to being reversed? Too many U-turns and you cannibalise your own authority – look at poor Keir Starmer.
But the message that went out to the interest groups who seek to influence public policy (and above all public spending) is clear. They see a weak government prepared to spend money to get itself out of political trouble.
Right on cue, gardaí have threatened to withdraw from voluntary overtime during the European Union presidency unless the Government moves on travel and subsistence rates, among other demands. No flies on the boys in blue.
But there are also deeper lessons from this week about how Irish politics works. It is one of the cast-iron laws of government that taking things away from people is much harder and carries a greater political cost than not giving them in the first place.
Talk to any of the veterans of the financial crisis and they will tell you about how the cuts to spending and services then exacted a fearful political toll. It was that era of austerity from 2008-2015 that more than anything else has shaped the political landscape today.
The previous era of plenty under Bertie Ahern’s governments had seen a thousand little giveaways to people through the social welfare and tax systems.
Under the Brian Cowen government and later the Enda Kenny-led Fine Gael-Labour administration, many of these were curtailed or cut. Taxes went up. Public sector pay was cut. Many ancillary welfare payments and grants were reduced or abolished.
The political cost can be measured in many ways, but here’s the most obvious: before the financial crisis Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were big enough to alternate power between them. Afterwards, they had to join forces to stay in power. If the next crisis is anything like the last one, they might find themselves out permanently.
All of which means then that the utmost caution is advisable before new spending decisions are made.
Nobody is saying public spending should not grow sustainably. But as a matter of self-preservation, any government should think not twice but several times before instituting new recurring spending obligations.
It might be able to survive not providing new services; but having given them, it will certainly not survive taking them away.
