Editing Garret FitzGerald (section)

== Taoiseach (1981–1982) ==
{{further|Government of the 22nd Dáil}}
By the time of the [[1981 Irish general election|1981 general election]], Fine Gael had a party machine that could compete with Fianna Fáil.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} The party won 65 seats and formed a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of several Independent TDs. FitzGerald was appointed as Taoiseach on 30 June 1981. FitzGerald excluded Richie Ryan, [[Richard Burke (Irish politician)|Richard Burke]] and [[Tom O'Donnell (politician)|Tom O'Donnell]], former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.

Two fundamental problems faced FitzGerald during his first period: [[Northern Ireland]] and the worsening economic situation. A protest march in support of the [[H-Block]] [[1981 Irish hunger strike|hunger strikers]] in July 1981 was harshly dealt with by FitzGerald. On one occasion where he met with relatives of the hunger strikers, he refused to meet the family of [[Bobby Sands]], an [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] for [[Fermanagh and South Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)|Fermanagh and South Tyrone]] and [[O/C]] of the [[Provisional IRA]] hunger strikers, and the first to die on this strike, along with the sister of [[Raymond McCreesh]], who had died on 21 May. During the meeting, two of [[Thomas McElwee]]'s sisters, Mary and Nora, broke down and left. Mary McElwee told the media outside that "he's doing nothing, he's asking for suggestions". FitzGerald then ordered Gardaí to remove the families from the meeting. FitzGerald's response was, in the words of Eamonn Sweeney, to "lay all the blame for the hunger strikers on the republican movement and to suggest an immediate unilateral end to their military campaign".<ref>{{cite book |first=Eamonn |last=Sweeney |title=Down Down Deeper and Down: Ireland in the 70s and 80s |year=2010 |page=231 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |isbn=978-0-7171-4633-8}}</ref>

The economic crisis was also much worse than FitzGerald had feared. Fine Gael had to scrap its plans for tax cuts in the run-up to the election, and a draconian mid-year budget was introduced almost immediately. The July budget seemed exceptionally austere for a government dependent on Independent TDs support.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} The second budget introduced by John Bruton led to the government's defeat in the Dáil on the evening of 27 January 1982.

In light of this [[loss of supply]], FitzGerald went to [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] to request a dissolution of the Dáil from the [[president of Ireland|president]], [[Patrick Hillery]]. The president may refuse to grant a dissolution when it was advised by a Taoiseach who has "ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann". When FitzGerald got there, he was informed that senior opposition figures (and some Independent TDs), including the Opposition leader (and former Taoiseach) Charles Haughey, [[Brian Lenihan Snr|Brian Lenihan]] and [[Sylvester Barrett]], had made a series of telephone calls demanding that Hillery refuse the dissolution. Had Hillery done so, it would have forced FitzGerald's resignation as Taoiseach and enabled the Dáil to nominate someone else for the post—presumably Haughey. Hillery is said to have angrily rejected such pressure, regarding it as gross misconduct. He granted FitzGerald the dissolution.{{efn|These events came back to haunt one of the callers, [[Brian Lenihan Snr|Brian Lenihan]], when his differing accounts of his role that night led to his dismissal from Haughey's cabinet in 1990, during his own unsuccessful [[1990 Irish presidential election|presidential election]] campaign.<ref>{{cite news |title=All the President's man: How a scandal surrounding a student interview kept Brian Lenihan out of the Áras |url=https://www.newstalk.com/news/all-the-presidents-man-how-a-student-journalists-tape-recorder-denied-brian-lenihan-his-place-in-ras-an-uachtarin-633201 |access-date=24 February 2021 |work=Newstalk |date=23 October 2015 |archive-date=29 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201229230813/https://www.newstalk.com/news/all-the-presidents-man-how-a-student-journalists-tape-recorder-denied-brian-lenihan-his-place-in-ras-an-uachtarin-633201 |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

At the [[February 1982 Irish general election|February 1982 general election]], Fine Gael lost only two seats but was out of office. However, the [[November 1982 Irish general election|November 1982 general election]] (the third election within eighteen months) resulted in FitzGerald being returned as Taoiseach for a second time, heading a Fine Gael–Labour coalition with a working majority.