“It’s time to be ourselves again,” declared the taoiseach.
No, that wasn’t Simon Harris kicking off the general election and the shackles of Coalition yesterday but Micheál Martin announcing the end of Covid restrictions back in January 2022.
Except they couldn’t return to being themselves again, because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were now bound together as senior partners in a three-way coalition with the Greens – a historic arrangement marking the end of a century of Civil War politics in Ireland, according to then Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar.
But would they hold together in the 33rd Dáil? Could they?
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“If you want my honest opinion – I’ll be devoured for saying this, I regularly speak to people from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and so on. Fianna Fáil can’t stand Fine Gael essentially and Fine Gael can’t stand Fianna Fáil essentially, none of them can stand the Green Party, so what’s this all about?” was the reaction of caretaker Minister of State John Halligan when the parties were in the protracted throes of negotiating a programme for government.
It took them the guts of five months to hammer out a deal but finally, in an Ireland changed unimaginably since polling day in early February 2020, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin achieved his heart’s desire after 31 years in national politics and was elected taoiseach.
The downside was that he had to swap places with tánaiste Leo Varadkar halfway though.
Despite all the misgivings, this unconventional Coalition managed to stay the course throughout a turbulent and sometimes crazy government term, reaching a natural conclusion after five budgets, three taoisigh and a global pandemic.
How soon we forget.
For these were unprecedented times and this was a government like no other.
Frenemies
When the 32nd Dáil met for the last time in December 2019, Fine Gael was in power thanks to a confidence-and-supply agreement reluctantly agreed by Fianna Fáil to ensure stability during the volatile Brexit negotiations.
It was an uncomfortable arrangement for both sides, but particularly for Fianna Fáil – shipping a lot of grief with none of the government glory. As the end drew near, bickering across the chamber floor between Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin intensified.
“You’re a nasty piece of work,” Micheál told Leo on his final day in Opposition.
“Putting Micheál Martin back in office would be like putting John Delaney back in charge of the FAI,” said Leo about Micheál during the campaign.
Fine Gael tails were up. Taoiseach Varadkar and his minister for foreign affairs Simon Coveney won kudos for how they dealt with Brexit on the international stage. Heather Humphreys said the party was “togged out and ready to go” unlike Fianna Fáil’s “Junior-B team”.
And then Sinn Féin came out and wiped the floor with the both of them. When the votes were counted there were now three big beasts on the political landscape and, had the Shinners fielded more candidates, they would have been the biggest beast of all.
But they didn’t. And the two old rivals, united by a mutual antipathy to Mary Lou McDonald’s party, agreed to become frenemies and form a government.
Sinn Féin embarked on a consolation We Woz Robbed moral victory tour of the island, holding rallies North and South and rolling out Mary Lou at packed rallies as “The People’s Taoiseach”.
Twilight zone
Irish politics entered a twilight zone as they bashed out a deal. Leo Varadkar remained as caretaker taoiseach.
A month after the election, he travelled to the United States for the St Patrick’s week, meeting President Donald Trump. And on the morning of March 12th, 2020, in the icy chill of a Washington DC dawn, he stood on the steps of a grey building opposite the White House and spoke to the anxious masses listening back home.
“Good morning. I need to speak to you about coronavirus and Covid 19...”
And that’s when everything changed.
The Covid years
This has been a government of two halves: the harrowing Covid years and then the rest.
When the crisis hit, life as people knew it shut down. So too did politics.
There are vaccines now, along with an invaluable fund of knowledge gained as the unknown unfolded – but back then, people were just very, very frightened.
It’s hard to remember that now. Those chilling scenes we witnessed from around the world as bodies piled up and cities battled to cope.
In the Dáil, TDs from all sides put on a united front in the fight to prevent infection and stem the number of active cases. It wasn’t until much later before deputies began questioning the severity of the preventive measures and some, such as Mattie McGrath, started muttering about the “scamdemic” and “condemic”.
This was the government of “flattening the curve” and of face masks and lockdowns, roadmaps and phased reopenings and false dawns.
Tony Holohan, the then chief medical officer, assumed godlike status and Nphet – the National Public Health Emergency Team – held sway.
In the Dáil, committees were abandoned. Then Leinster House was abandoned and the whole kit and caboodle relocated to the banks of the Liffey and the great glass edifice of the Convention Centre Dublin where TDs sat, socially distanced, in the gloomy auditorium and the ceann comhairle tried to run proceedings from a desk on the stage.
On rare occasions when meetings took place in the actual Dáil chamber, the handful of TDs allowed in were given tubs of disinfectant wipes and told to swab down their seats before leaving.
Trust
New Taoiseach Micheál Martin landed into the middle of all this.
Former taoiseach and now tánaiste Leo Varadkar vowed to do his bit to make the arrangement viable. “We’re going to have to learn to work with each other. Trust each other.”
The work bit was fine. Not so much the trust element.
Micheál announced his new cabinet.
His deputy leader, Mayo’s Dara Calleary, didn’t get the nod as had been widely expected. His home county took umbrage at this terrible snub – not one senior minister from west of the Shannon was appointed.
“The triumvirate of Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan unveiled a cabinet that Oliver Cromwell would have been proud to call his own. To Hell or to Connacht indeed”, thundered the Western People.
Golfgate
But Dara was one of the survivors of the 33rd Dáil. As was his party colleague Barry Cowen, sacked as minister for agriculture by the Taoiseach just a month into the job following a controversy surrounding a drink-driving ban from years ago.
The west celebrated when Dara replaced him while Barry seethed on the backbenches. Then Dara resigned when the Golfgate controversy erupted.
Barry is now an MEP representing the Midlands-Northwest constituency. And Dara – a court later exonerated politicians charged with breaking Covid regulations by attending an ill-considered but totally legal Oireachtas golf society dinner in Galway – is now a Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise with high chair access to the Cabinet table.
Various ministers survived confidence motions, including Leo Varadkar after he leaked a confidential document on a pay agreement for GPs to a friend from a doctors’ union not involved in the contract talks. The Opposition cried foul and he was hauled into the Dáil to answer questions before facing a motion of no confidence tabled by Sinn Féin.
The Coalition held together and won comfortably.
Another survivor was Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty. She was minister for social protection when she lost her seat in 2020 and went on to become leader of the Seanad. She had been expected to run for a Dáil seat again but was elected to the European Parliament earlier this year.
Labour pains
Brendan Howlin stepped down as leader of the Labour Party after a disastrous election result. He was succeeded by Alan Kelly, who brought a certain enthusiasm and vigour to the job of opposition, and who was fond of describing Government decisions as “bonkers”.
But he didn’t improve the party’s parlous standing and was clinically taken out by a group of TDs and senators who went to him one night and told him the game was up.
He fell on his sword and was replaced by Ivana Bacik. She produced a rare moment of joy for the party when she won the Dublin Bay South by-election in 2021.
Meanwhile, Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall, co-leaders and co-founders (along with now Fianna Fáil Minister Stephen Donnelly) of the Social Democrats, stepped aside to make way for new blood at the top.
First-time TD Holly Cairns from Cork South West won the race to succeed them and was immediately asked if the party would consider a merger with the Labour Party. She categorically ruled this out.
Venerable old Labour responded by loftily pointing out that the Labour Party was founded by James Connolly while the Social Democrats were founded by Stephen Donnelly.
Holly came back with a perfect riposte: “I’d rather be in a party that abandoned Stephen Donnelly than in a party that abandoned James Connolly.”
RTÉ payments scandal
If the Golfgate controversy convulsed the nation in the first half of the outgoing government, the RTÉ payments scandal swept all before it in the second. Happy days for any government when somebody else’s mismanagement woes are taking the spotlight off how they are running the country.
It provided weeks and weeks of grandstanding opportunities as RTÉ management and the man at the centre of the storm, Ryan Tubridy, were grilled to a crisp by two Dáil committees.
The Opposition’s attempts to hold the government’s feet to the fire on the major issues of housing, health and the cost of living were similarly consigned to the margins. The real-life RTÉ drama was what we wanted to hear.
Their finest hour
Regular state-of-the-nation addresses from taoiseach Leo Varadkar and taoiseach Micheál Martin were a familiar feature during those lockdown days.
They won praise for the tone and content of these solemn speeches, providing leadership and comfort at a very difficult time.
Their stock soared. Some said it was their finest hour.
A change of mood
When the cloud lifted, politics slowly returned to normal.
Leo stopped stealing Micheál’s limelight when he took over from him as taoiseach. Junior ministers came and went – mini-scandals capturing low-grade scalps. The three-cornered Coalition stool remained steady in the face of Opposition outrage.
But if Micheál Martin embraced the top job with gusto, Leo Varadkar seemed less engaged.
Sinn Féin was flying in the polls. When Mary Lou wasn’t calling the taoiseach a “disgrace” she was “calling time” on the “Tweedledee-Tweedledum” government and demanding a general election. This was a party preparing for power.
Experienced Fine Gael TDs began announcing they would not be contesting the next election. A smaller number in Fianna Fáil expressed similar intentions.
The government made a hames of two referendums and lost them. The mood was not good.
Far-right activists targeted TDs for abuse and anti-immigration sentiment gathered pace around the country, particularly in disadvantaged areas. Protesters laid siege to Leinster House one day last year. On a shocking night in November, rioters paralysed the centre of Dublin, setting fire to vehicles and burning out a Luas on O’Connell Street.
Sinn Féin, now seen as part of the political establishment by the anti-migrant brigade, saw core support in these key areas slipping away. Poll figures dropped. Now the party is beset by embarrassing internal scandal.
Shock resignation
This year, following his trip to Washington to meet a different US president, taoiseach Varadkar returned to Dublin and announced his shock resignation. He had run out of steam and had nothing left to give. It was time for a new leader.
Simon Harris, then minister for higher education, shot out of the traps, leaving potential candidates floundering in his wake. His team worked the phones late into the night and launched a media blitz the following morning, wrapping up the contest in 24 hours.
“A new energy” was unleashed in Government Buildings and the Fine Gael faithful flocked to Simon’s side. The public liked what they saw. His popularity shot up.
Taoiseach number three of the 33rd Dáil. The youngest ever in the history of the State.
Eamon Ryan stepped down as leader of the Greens. Roderic O’Gorman will now lead the party into battle.
Politicians falling like skittles. Leaders leaving the fray.
Except for Micheál Martin. Still there and still up for the fight.
Simon Harris knows this is his election to lose. He knows the next three weeks will be the most important of his life.
He knows he will never have a better chance to win a general election than the one he has now.
Take your pick.
Micheál Martin, Mary Lou McDonald, Simon Harris.
The campaign is on.
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