Angry Dáil scenes were partly the result of Sinn Féin’s determination to be a more aggressive Opposition

One of the questions we political journalists get asked a lot on the rare occasions we are invited into polite company is about the true nature of politicians: what are they really like? How long have you got, I reply.

One of the versions you hear most frequently is about politicians’ true feelings about each other. People hear them arguing on the radio, or watch them savaging each other on the television and wonder if they really mean it – or is it all a bit of a charade? Are they all in on it, or do they really hate each other? Like a lot of good questions, the answer is: yes and no.

Politics is a human business and politicians often tend to be larger-than-life personalities. And so, their human interactions and relationships matter. And while political allegiances are, as Vito Corleone put it, not personal, just business – they come and go, according to the exigencies of the day – you can’t take human emotion and personal feelings entirely out of the picture, either.

The emotional climate in Leinster House was heightened this week and will be altered by the events of Wednesday, when the Opposition’s fury at the plans to extend Opposition speaking time to Independent backbenchers led them to disrupt the election of Micheál Martin. They shouted down Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy’s attempts to hold the votes for which the Dáil had assembled.

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The genuine anger of many Opposition TDs evident in Wednesday’s exchanges, their sullen discontent when things calmed down on Thursday, the largely contained but still acute personal fury of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs at all levels – especially sensitive in Fianna Fáil to the feelings of Micheál Martin’s family – these deeply held feelings will not dissipate quickly. They will hang in the air in Leinster House, and they will affect what happens next. Sometimes politicians laugh and joke together after the argument; but sometimes they certainly do not.

Four times the Dáil was adjourned in uproar amid scenes that nobody in Leinster House had previously seen the likes of before. It did seem like something substantial had changed – the end of a consensus in which everyone, or at least all the big parties, agreed that parliament had to work, and had to work according to a series of rules. Stepping outside that generally accepted framework is not a trivial thing.

Of course, it was an outrageous try-on by the Independents, backed by the Government. As an Irish Times editorial put it during the week, the question was not whether there is a precedent for allowing supporters of the Government to speak in Opposition time – it is whether the proposal was defensible on its own terms. And the answer to that is clear: it’s not.

But if it was a stroke too far, the reaction – to shut down the work of the Dáil when it was engaged in one of its most important jobs – was wholly disproportionate.

So much so that it is only explicable by looking at the wider political context. And that’s the second effect of the week’s clashes – they illuminate and also deepen the scale of division between the Government and Opposition. Irish politics became rougher and more ill-tempered this week.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that part of this, at least, is down to Sinn Féin’s determination to be a more aggressive Opposition – and to be the undisputed leader of that Opposition.

Sinn Féin spent two years before the election portraying itself as a government-in-waiting. We saw how that worked. The model is different now: it will be hyper-oppositional. No holds barred.

The image of Ivana Bacik trying to lead a walkout of her deputies, only to see them lining up behind Alan Kelly, unmoving – I’m not sure she will be replaying that one in her head with satisfaction

This presents an obvious question for Labour and the Social Democrats: stick with Sinn Féin or carve a different path. This week, they went with the Sinn Féin line; the Opposition was remarkably united against the Government, as captured by the image of Mary Lou McDonald speaking for the Opposition on RTÉ's Six-One News, surrounded supportively by the leaders of Labour and the Social Democrats, like backbenchers around the Boss at a Fianna Fáil ardfheis.

My guess is that is more congenial a position for the Social Democrats, less burdened by history, than it is for Labour. The latter would have been less comfortable with making the Dáil ungovernable than were their allies.

Similarly, the image of Ivana Bacik trying to lead a walkout of her deputies, only to reach the limits of the chamber and, looking back, to see them lining up behind Alan Kelly, unmoving at the bottom of the steps, leaving Bacik to loiter near the door – well, I’m not sure she will be replaying that one in her head with satisfaction.

As Sinn Féin’s Mairead Farrell told the Dáil, “Day one of government tells us what the Government is going to be like.” She has a point. But day one of Opposition may also tell us what the Opposition is going to be like.

None of this is remotely to justify the Government’s attempted sleeveenism. But it does show that the game has changed.

For now, Martin looks like a man in a hurry. He may not be old, but he knows time ticks on fast in the Taoiseach’s Office. He also knows how slow the Irish system can be to turn decisions into delivery. When he was last taoiseach, he burned through phone batteries ringing senior officials in various departments as he quizzed them and prodded them on his evening walks. They can expect to see a familiar number ringing fairly soon. Back in the Dáil, the new Taoiseach can expect to be resisted at every turn. If this week is any indication, a rough and raw few years are ahead for Irish politics.