There is a certain woolliness around the balaclava these days, and the Taoiseach isn’t wearing it.
Fianna Fáil backbencher John Lahart brought up the subject when he shared the Taoiseach’s concern about protests outside the homes of politicians.
“What is the legal position in relation to the wearing of masks and balaclavas at protests? Is there a legal position in relation to it? Is it legal? How do you view it yourself? Is the Government minded to look at that?” asked the Dublin South-West TD.
“I can’t think of any good reason – aside from a pandemic – why someone would want to cover their face in a public protest or in a public situation.”
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Simon was right there with him.
“It’s exactly an issue I’m exploring now,” he replied. He is currently exploring more avenues than a family of ferrets lost in an underground maze. Since taking over two weeks ago as the youngest-ever Taoiseach, the Infant Phenomenon of the 32nd Dáil has hardly stopped to draw breath.
In his first few appearances at Leaders’ Questions he has counteracted a number of pressing questions by saying he is already “following up” on the issue. And if he cannot supply a swift answer he will be on to his line Minister like lightning for a response.
He hares off to events around the country at the drop of a hat. He drops in on meetings and he dashes off letters, he cannot swerve a microphone and he meets and greets like a man possessed.
He was at a press conference on housing in Government Buildings before coming into the Dáil. After his duties in the chamber he popped up at a select meeting of the Finance Committee. Never stops.
But back to John Lahart’s balaclavas.
“If the view of society is that people shouldn’t be able to turn up masked outside people’s homes – anybody’s home – in this country, we need to know a very simple answer as legislators: Is that legal now? And if it is, let us fix it and change the law. And if it’s not legal, why isn’t it being stopped and enforced?”
Funnily enough, Simon knows a woman who might be able to help.
“I’ve asked the Minister for Justice to come back to me on that.”
Marvellous. He’ll have an answer ready for John in no time so.
In fairness, he is still new at the job.
Meanwhile, when Mary Lou McDonald brought up the alarming overcrowding in University Hospital Limerick’s emergency department, he fully agreed that the situation is, indeed, a very serious one.
“It would be simply not credible to suggest anything to the contrary.”
However, he disagreed with her assertion that staffing levels are at a dangerous low because of an embargo on recruitment. What concerns him is that the Government has increased staff numbers and put in a serious level of investment for what looks like zero return.
How is that happening?
So while “specifically following up on the staffing levels”, he also has the Minister for Health working on the situation.
There will be answers soon because, quelle surprise, the new Taoiseach is on it like a car bonnet.
Or rather, Stephen Donnelly “intends to get under the bonnet”.
Which is not the same as the balaclava. Although it might be a good idea for Simon to get under one if he arrives to inspect the spluttering A&E engine in Dooradoyle with the ministerial spanner in tow.
After his stint in the Dáil the Taoiseach headed over to committee room 3 to face the Finance Committee for a grilling on his department’s spending plans. By this stage in the day he had acquired a pair of nerdy reading glasses and a five o’clock shadow.
Until this point, Fine Gael’s Infant Phenomenon must have felt he was coping quite well with the demands of high office. Hitting the ground running, throwing himself into the job, up for anything.
He sailed along smoothly with the committee.
Then a straggling member puffed through the door as proceedings were about to wrap up.
And very early into his tenure, Simon Harris heard one of the most terrifying utterances a Taoiseach can ever hear.
For it was Bernard Durkan, veteran and voluble Fine Gael TD for Kildare North, with five chilling words.
“How many minutes have I?”
“One,” deadpanned committee chair John McGuinness, which got a good laugh.
Bernard commenced by congratulating the Taoiseach on his recent elevation before setting off on a lengthy, wide-ranging, uninterrupted peregrination around the most pressing issues facing this country and the world today.
He started with “The Irish Question, which it has been referred to over many year”, the Belfast Agreement, higher education in Derry and the saga of Sinn Féin posters calling for a Border poll disappearing from lamp-posts when he was driving home from work once.
“The next thing I want to comment on is the economy.”
There followed an overview of the last decade interspersed with musings on how the Government handled the Covid crisis.
“In relation to migration ...”
Bernard settled in for the long haul, arms folded across his chest, decrying the misinformation and disinformation emanating from unauthenticated sources, “very misleading information poured on top of people” designed to terrorise the population and create fear.
And he took it from there with a very deep dive though the immigration issue as it affects the nation today.
“I want to mention as well the challenges ahead. Climate change we accept. It’s happening.”
But, he pointed out to the nipper Harris, there has been climate change in the past and we will have it again in the future.
“I’m around long enough now to be able to remember the end of the forties and fifties, in which there were only two good years.”
Bernard held up two fingers. “Two,” he told the entranced Infant Phenomenon. “Two years that it didn’t rain all year long, like 1949, 1950, 1951 – all the years that you couldn’t stay out without an umbrella at any time.
“1952 was a good year, Chairman, as I remember it well. I got badly sunburned that year. And 1953 was appalling. ‘54 was worse, ‘55 was a good year, ‘56 was appalling again. ‘57 was bad and ‘58, Chairman, you’ll be glad to know the fledgling combine harvesters were left in the field and had to be torn out the following spring.”
Suddenly, Bernard realised he was double booked. He looked at his watch.
“I was hoping to participate in the debate now ongoing in the House but I can’t be in two places, despite all that.”
The Chairman perked up. “Yes. Yes you can. You’d make it!”
“No, no, there are a couple of issues to do with the economy,” insisted Bernard. “For instance, soil management. Soil management is at an all-time low and I was looking at somebody last week on television with a tractor in a field and ...”
Furthermore, there is the problem with food imports. “In our house I’ve had to do the supermarket [shop] in recent years and as a result you spot the things that are happening, the trends ...”
Fifteen minutes after he first cleared his throat, Bernard wound up with more best wishes for the Taoiseach, who, sadly, had slipped into a stupor.
“It might be some comfort to you to know that you have spoken longer than any other member,” remarked John McGuinness.
Bernard vehemently protested. “That I have not. They have watches in Kildare too. I have an antique watch here ...”
Shaken to the very core, the Taoiseach finally escaped.
Maybe this new job and new energy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
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