Fergus Finlay is probably Ireland's best known spin doctor. He refashioned the Labour Party in the 1980s, created the public relations success which was Dick Spring, and was a key player in the Mary Robinson campaign and the phenomenal Labour performance in the 1992 general election.

These were the high points of his career and he went on to play a significant role in the peace process under two governments. It all ended in tears, though. He helped to bring down the Fianna Fáil/Labour government in 1994 and to bring John Bruton to power as Taoiseach. There followed the collapse of the Labour vote in the 1997 general election and the fiasco of the Adi Roche presidential campaign which marked the end of the line for both Spring and Finlay.

With the PR person's ear for a soundbite Finlay spins through the years from 1982 to 1997 in recollections which are always engaging and readable.

For a political junkie they are a must. But this is political fast food and it will leave you feeling hungry.

We get an insider's view of the political machinations but we don't really get inside Finlay's head. There is much significant omission. There is no discussion of the merits or ethics of Labour going into coalition. Finlay's later prominence has obscured his role in the 1982-87 FitzGerald/SpringCoalition. The period is dealt with summarily and Finlay expresses no regrets over the policies of that most Thatcherite of Irish governments. He laments the fact that it was Spring who had to announce the cutting of food subsidies but not the cuts themselves. Opposition to the cuts within Labour is described as ``faction-fighting''. Yet he later describes the Haughey government implementing a ``series of savage cuts in social spending''.

Finlay and Spring together turned the Labour Party into an instrument of their will, just as Tony Blair has done in Britain. Finlay is bare-faced about their methods. He reveals that he stopped the distribution of the proposed new Labour constitution to branches of the party in the run-up to the 1991 conference which adopted it. He admits this was a ``denial of party democracy'' but justifies it:

``I have always believed that our way of debating issues in public, and our sense that the party belongs to its members, is one of the best characterisitics of the party. But building sometimes requires clearing the ground, and if it has to be done, it's best to be done cleanly.''

He does not tell us that what was `cleared' away was Labour's core aspiration - on paper at least - to a united socialist Ireland. Socialism gets two passing mentions in the book. Nowhere are general political principles or policies discussed.

Interestingly, Finlay admits that Labour delayed pulling out of the 82-87 Coalition in order to facilitate the passage of the Extradition Act, aimed at sending political prisoners to Britain and the Six Counties. Contrast this with the Labour pull-out from the Reynolds government and their ending of negotiations with Bertie Ahern for a new FF/Lab Coalition at the most delicate phase of the peace process. Finlay never explains why it was alright to stay in government so long with FitzGerald but essential to pull the plug on Fianna Fáil.

Finlay admits that he had no interest in the national question. He tells of how Spring led the FitzGerald coalition's policy of boycotting elected Sinn Féin representatives. The inclusive peace process thus caused Finlay a ``crisis of conscience''. They strongly opposed Mary Robinson's encounter and handshake - you could hardly call it a meeting - with Gerry Adams in West Belfast in 1993. The tide of events carried them along however, and the prospect of the peace process was a key factor in the Labour decision to go into Coalition with Albert Reynolds.

It is probably too soon to assess the coverage of the London/Dublin negotiations as presented here but Finlay is quite scathing about the British, especially on decommissioning. He says that when Major binned the report of the Decommissioning Body he ``drove a wedge of solid mahogany into the peace process''. The appalling role of John Bruton is also clear. While later attempting to exonerate him, Finlay shows how the British seized on Taoiseach Bruton's demand for ``concrete steps'' towards decommissioning and elevated it to a principle, using it as a blocking mechanism, an ``entirely hypocritical stance''.

The central unanswered question in this book is why Labour pulled out of Coalition with Fianna Fáil. While the irresponsible handling of the Brendan Smyth affair and Albert Reynolds's stubbornness played a part it is hard to see, in the context of the peace process, the justification for the Labour pullout. They had put up with worse in Coaltion with FitzGerald. Was there a hidden hand exploiting Labour's habitual suspicion of Fianna Fáil?

I recall at the time I was at a seminar with a number of Labour Party members and how their absolute antipathy to Fianna Fáil blinded them to the consequences of the fall of the Reynolds government for the peace process.

It also blinded them to the nature of Fine Gael, their usual partners in the Coalition bed. It was ever thus with Labour. History will record of the party of Spring and Finlay that they repeatedly breathed new life into an ailing Fine Gael, thus thwarting their own stated ambition of strengthening the left in Ireland.

By Mícheál MacDonncha



Two booklets; Frank Cahill Remembers, with an introduction by his son Ciaran Cahill, and The Gates Flew Open: The night the Kesh went up, a personal view by Jim McCann, were launched last Thursday at the Frank Cahill Resource Centre on Belfast's Whiterock Road. Speaking at the launch of Frank Cahill Remembers Frank's son Ciaran said, ``I hope that people can read my fathers interviews and perhaps benefit from them.''

Frank Cahill Remembers is about the economic regeneration of West Belfast and is a collection of interviews with Frank, and Frank was always sceptical about governments but he said ``If you have to deal with them deal with them.''

The second booklet is a personal account of the burning of Long Kesh in October 1974 and is written by ex-prisoner Jim McCann. According to McCann the burning of Long Kesh was one of the biggest ever engagements between the British Army and the Republican movement. He spoke of a feeling of pride and comradeship between the men, ``there was no question of running, you just dealt with it. The atmosphere in the prison was electric and the feeling of comradeship can never be diminished''.

At the launch, Fr Des Wilson said, ``it is important that the heritage of ordinary people, their views, that a true history is recorded.''

The publisher of the booklets, local man Gerry Sloan, has managed to publish ten books in the last three months, and these and the recent booklets are available from Springhill Community Productions, 6-7 Springhill Close, Belfast, BT12 76E.