Irish Times columnist and author, Noel Whelan made the above comment last week to irishsmokefill, days before the latest opinion poll result, which put FF at 20 percent, down 5 points from the previous MRBI poll.

‘’Fianna Fail are fortunate to have survived the predictions of many, myself included, and the difficulty they have is there is still so much public anger and volatility out there, that anything can happen in Irish politics,’’ said Whelan.  ‘’They are now other alternatives like Sinn Fein, and space for a possible new political party, but I’m not sure if Reform Alliance have positioned themselves well to be a new party, but we’ll have to wait and see.’’

He said that Fianna Fail hasn’t gone away, but has to be more robust in its opposition and show what new vision it has, and what its priority is.

‘’They have to show what will happen for the next five years, and to talk more and focus more on the future,’’ he said.  ‘‘Fianna Fail should be about recognising where their policies are, and what does a recovered Ireland look like.’’

Noel Whelan is one of the editors, along with Mary O’Rourke and Brian Murphy of the new book, ‘Brian Lenihan – In Calm and Crisis’ published by Irish Academic Press.