Shortly before 7pm on Monday evening, Irish politics witnessed a Séamus Darby moment.
Darby was the Offaly sub that came on late in the 1982 All Ireland. The imperious Kerry team were cruising to what looked like an inevitable victory and a historic five-in-a-row. But a late late goal by Darby wrested it from their hands.
All weekend it looked like Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had bested Micheál Martin and that the Fianna Fáil leader would have to blink first to avoid a general election. The signals were there would be no stepping down by Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald but some formula would be found to accommodate Fianna Fáil concerns.
That all was predicated on the Taoiseach having the whip hand and having every available bit of knowledge at his disposal. As a keen student of Irish political history, he knew his whole strategy had to be based on no other incriminating evidence coming out, no matter how small.
Then Monday came. The Department of Justice made available all the documents from an internal trawl. It showed that, in May 2015, the Tánaiste had been made aware in three emails and a phonecall of the “aggressive” legal strategy being pursued by An Garda Síochána against Sgt Maurice McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation, which was looking into his allegations of corruption.
It was a game-changer, although it took a few hours for the implications to become obvious. In public, Fine Gael was still standing foursquare behind the Tánaiste. Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney gave a spirited defence of Fitzgerald on Clare Byrne Live on RTÉ.
At 10pm Fitzgerald broke her media silence with two tweets defending her position. “As Justice Minister I could not interfere with the O’Higgins Commission. This has been confirmed twice in today’s docs [DOCUMENTS]and has been confirmed by the AG [Attorney General].”
It was a defiant stance, bolstered by her spokeswoman and the Government’s spokesman who separately said the position remained the same.
However, behind the scenes the tone was different. Varadkar and Martin met for an hour in private where the Fianna Fáil leader emphasised the need for her to resign. A senior Fianna Fáil figure said on Tuesday amid all the weekend uncertainty Martin “had a hunch that Alan Kelly had more information at his disposal”.
Kelly, the Labour justice spokesman was in possession of a file of very specific and detailed information on the extent of knowledge in the department about the Garda legal strategy against McCabe.
Despite all that, Fianna Fáil was uncertain until Tuesday morning whether or not Fitzgerald would resign.
Varadkar spoke to her after his meeting with Martin. At lunchtime on Tuesday, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said categorically that Varadkar had “not asked her to consider her position.” However, it is certain he asked her to reflect on the situation in light of the latest disclosures.
By Tuesday mid-morning, that question was settled. From early morning, the first Fine Gael TDs were breaking cover and signalling that they were nearing the end game.
Galway West TD Hildegarde Naughton spoke to Raidio na Gaeltachta saying it “would be difficult” for the Tánaiste to remain in Cabinet. Fergus O’Dowd also signalled doubts saying the “future of the Government was at stake”.
The Cabinet held its weekly meeting on Tuesday morning. The Independent Alliance requested a meeting with Varadkar ahead of it and said it was seeking “political accountability” from Fitzgerald. The situation is “very grave”, its leader Shane Ross told reporters.
Meanwhile, in a strong signal that something had changed, Fine Gael pulled its representatives from all media appearances. Minister of State Jim Daly was due to go on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke but pulled out minutes beforehand.
TDs and Senators started arriving into Leinster House during the morning, ahead of the Dáil resuming. It was clear that the mood music was now very different from the previous Friday. Everybody, including Fine Gael members, were saying that the Tánaiste would have to go. “She will be gone by lunchtime,” was the prescient observation of one backbencher.
Martin earns praise
Fianna Fáil held a front-bench meeting. There had been some mutterings from party back-benchers at the weekend that Martin was marching all his colleagues into a general election. But now, there was nothing but praise for his strategy, even though the tone of the meeting was sober.
Meanwhile, Fitzgerald arrived into the Cabinet meeting, which started mid-morning, to inform colleagues that she would resign. It was emotional. In a contribution, which was based on written notes, she told Ministerial colleagues she had come to the conclusion of her own volition and it was made principally to avoid an election.
She also told colleagues she believed her good name would be “vindicated” at the Disclosures Tribunal. Attorney General Séamus Woulfe briefed the Cabinet that it would have been improper for her to intervene in 2015. But by this stage, the argument was moot.
At 2pm, the Taoiseach arrived into the Dáil for leader’s questions. He cut a relatively subdued figure as he read out a statement confirming Fitzgerald had resigned and he would be temporarily taking over her portfolio.
The Fianna Fáil leader was restrained in his comments, although he did hone in on the role of Charlie Flanagan. It took a week for the current Minister for Justice to inform the Taoiseach of that crucial 2015 email, and it was his department in which all this missing information was laying.
In his reply, Varadkar criticised the department in a manner that was unprecedented for a Taoiseach. He said Flanagan would make an apology for the failures of the department to answers questions fully and also referred to Flanagan’s mistake. Several times, he returned to the theme of having to correct the Dáil record twice because of wrong information given to him by Justice. He also announced an inquiry into the department.
“Had all the information and questions been answered and put into the public domain, it would not have been necessary for the Tánaiste to tender her resignation this morning,” Varadkar said.
That point was arguable. Some Fine Gael TDs wondered how much the Taoiseach himself knew of the new emails before Monday (he certainly had a summary on Friday). “Did he not have all the information? Or, if he did, did he not fully appreciate how bad they would play?” asked one experienced colleague.
It didn’t end there. Secretary general of the department Noel Waters announced he was resigning immediately, three months shy of his retirement. Flanagan came before the Dáil at 7pm and issued an apology for his own mistake, and the manifold mistakes of the department.
It’s clear that Labour’s Kelly and Sinn Féin will pursue Flanagan now but there is little appetite in Fianna Fáil to bring it any further. For the main Opposition party, an election has been averted. Talk has inevitably turned to an election in the first half of 2018.
All in all, it was a good 24 hours for both Micheál Martin and Alan Kelly. It was a bad 24 hours for Leo Varadkar and Charlie Flanagan.
As for Frances Fitzgerald, she remained sanguine enough to tweet at 2pm: “Just to confirm Dublin Mid-West selection convention is going ahead this evening and I will be putting my name forward for selection.”
Even in all the churn, politics somehow remains always forward looking.
