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On This Day: 18th February  Events and documents from this date in history

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1948

The First Inter-Party Government Was Formed

The first inter-party government was formed on the 18th of February 1948. It was an agreement between Fine Gael and Labour, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and the National Labour Party.

Clann na Poblachta explained their position in joining the coalition in the subsequent issue of their paper, The Clann:

Our Policy THE decision of the Clann to put out the Fianna Fail Government and to join in an inter-party Government will be exploited to the utmost by Fianna Fail in an effort to split the Clann and to disrupt the inter-party Government. One look at the “Irish Press” indicates that they will stop at no device to foster dissension. The people’s verdict was clearly ‘put them out.” We asked them for that verdict and got it. We asked them also to voice approval for our whole policy. This they did not do. They merely gave approval to those portions of our policy which were common to the policies of the Opposition parties. In this set of. facts we could not claim that we had a mandate to form a Government by ourselves, nor indeed, would! it have been possible to attempt to do so. To have allowed Fianna Fail to come back to office would have meant an immediate General Election. The only two alternatives left were to join in the formation of an inter-party Government or to support a Fine Gael Government from outside. To support a Fine Gael Govern- Ment from the outside would have been a blind acceptance of Fine Gael’s policy. This would have been impossible. In such an eventuality Fianna Fail. could have precipitated a General Election at any time, by clever parliamentary tactics. Instead we adopted the remaining alternative, that is, of joining in an inter-party Government under the Chairmanship of one who had tot been assooi- ated prominently with the turbulent past. As already indicated, there are many points upon which all the Parties joined in the inter-party Government are agreed. Those will be the points that will form the policy of the Government. Ten of these poirts have already been published. An examination of these will show that they formed a substantial part of the Clann’s policy. There are, of course, many points upon which there is no agreement. These matters, therefore, ‘will have to remain in abeyance. This will apply not merely to those portions of the Clann policy upon which there is no agreement, but also to those portions of Fine Gael’s Poltey upon which there is no agreement. For instance, ‘ine Gael’s Commonwealth policy will not be pursued; indeed the best sign of good faith in this matter was the appointment of Sean McBride to. External Affairs. In- versely, the Clann’s policy in relation to the repeal of the External Relations Act and the separation of currency will have to remain in abeyance until such times as the Clann can secure a definite mandate from the people. In the step they have taken the Clann have yielded nothing, for there was no possibility of putting into operation the other parts of our policy until a mandate was secured from the people. The Clann has achieved the position whereby it will be able to have at least a portion of its policy put into immediate operation. No other policy which it could have pursued would have secured this. It is ridiculous to. suggest that the Clann and Fine Gael have merged. The two organisations remain completely separate with distinct and separate policies, just as the Conservative and Labour Parties in England maintained their re- spective independence during the Coalition Government under the Chairmanship of Mr. Winston Churchill. The matter was stated succinctly by Sean McBride in the course of his speech in Dail Eireann on the Election of the Taoiseach. He said— “We as a Party in this House do not abandon, waive, mitigate or modify any portion of our policy, we merely. agree to o0-operate with other parties in giving effect to those portions of our policy upon which there is agreement. We shall do so honestly, frankly and to the best of our ability because we believe that that is what the nation wishes us to do, But we shall maintain our identity and policy in every respect.”
"Our Policy": Clann na Poblachta explains its position after joining the first inter-party government following the 1948 election (The Clann, February 1948).
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