It didn’t take long for the Taoiseach’s Oval Office balancing act to go pear-shaped. The bar was set low before he left.
The measure of success, it seemed, was survival.
Just getting through an audience with Donald Trump and assorted sidekicks without being blackguarded and ballyragged out the door by his erratic hosts would be enough.
Micheál Martin was waved off on this dangerous St Patrick’s week mission with the supportive words of sympathetic political opponents ringing in his ears. The nation held its breath as he prepared to go over the top in the White House.
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God speed, Micheál. Don’t try to be a Volodymyr. Just go in there and do what you have to do for Ireland.
Tough gig. We’ll understand.
And he got through it, despite the toe-curling awkwardness of the entire episode. The post-meeting verdict was generally positive.
But as time and danger passed, Micheál’s screamingly unassertive performance – he barely got a chance to say anything outside of the placating patter – was weighed up and found wanting by many of those who had been waving hankies in solidarity before he left.
A week on from the Oval Office and it was a different scenario. The fallout from Washington continued on to the floor of the Dáil on Wednesday.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald – whose party opted not to go on its usual lucrative jaunt stateside this season – quickly picked up on an iffy exchange between the Taoiseach and the US president on our housing crisis.
Trump remarked that a housing shortage is a good problem to have because it means Ireland is doing well economically.
“You replied: ‘That’s a pretty good answer, Mr President,’” she noted.
Right enough, as simpering responses go, it was pretty mortifying. Micheál pointed out to Mary Lou that he followed up later by stressing housing is the number one issue in this country.
When she watched the meeting, Mary Lou didn’t see a Taoiseach smiling dementedly while larding on the soft soap so he wouldn’t get savaged. “You were sitting in the Oval office laughing about Ireland’s housing crisis.”
Does he really think that was “a pretty good answer” for people crucified by high rents or young people struggling to get a start in life or families forced into homelessness, with children being raised in B&Bs? And this amid news that one of his Ministers got a departmental report days before the general election rubbishing the then government’s claim that 40,000 houses would be built that year.
[ Officials cast doubt weeks before election that 2024 housing targets would be hitOpens in new window ]
And what was Micheál doing about this last week? “Sniggering” at ordinary decent Irish people from the hoity-toity confines of the White House, she claimed.
Well. At least he had the backbone to venture into the den of the Donald, riposted the Taoiseach.
“You chose not to go to Washington – a big mistake, in my view,” he told the Sinn Féin leader. “Hadn’t the courage or the guts to go.”
Courage? It doesn’t take much courage “to snigger at people” she shrugged at him. “That, to me, is the action of an obsequious coward.”
She made him sound like Dick Dastardly with his “cowardly act to snigger at the suffering and hardship of people back home when you feel you are at a safe distance to do so”.
At least the Taoiseach, for all his faults, had the courage to go over the top and in to the White House.
Mary Lou went over the top.
Then Micheál reeled off the Government’s housing targets and housing completions and all the other the achievements he routinely reads into the record while complaining that the Opposition doesn’t give him any credit.
“You’re spoofing,” cried Mary Lou, giving him one of her classic “g’way outta that” looks.
The Taoiseach, smarting from being accused of sniggering at people’s problems, hit back strongly.
“I think that’s pathetic. You accuse me of spoofing? I mean, get off the stage. Come off the stage. No one was sniggering at any housing crisis. You know that. You know that. It’s pathetic – the protestations, and your attempt to exploit eh ...”
He struggled to find the words to describe his unique Oval Office experience.
“ ... that particular moment, and so forth.”
Criticise my policies, he told her, “but don’t be trying to say you have a monopoly of concern or empathy on the housing question.”
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There was a harsh edge to their exchanges which hardened further when Mary Lou admonished him for a second time for not saying the right thing during his meeting with Trump in the Oval office.
Mindful of the latest, horrific, Israeli air strikes on Gaza, she told him he had the chance to “respectfully challenge Trump on the US getting it so catastrophically wrong in Gaza and on backing Israel’s war machine to the hilt” but he didn’t take it.
“Now the people of Gaza are slaughtered once again.”
This riled Micheál.
“For the life of me, deputy, I will never understand why you didn’t go to Capitol Hill. And the reason I will never understand it is: you have many friends on Capitol Hill. You have many funders in America who have funded your organisation. You have a lot of business contacts. You meet with a lot of developers in the US.”
In fact, the Taoiseach knew very well why she didn’t go. He did understand why. He had no problem saying what he thinks is the reason. “You didn’t want to face them.”
Them being the people they tap for money on their St Patrick’s week visits. These political friends and business contacts have “a different perspective on the Middle East” from Sinn Féin’s one.
The Taoiseach, on the other hand, had no issue in flying over and stating Ireland’s “fundamental, principled stance” about the crisis.
As for Mary Lou and her party?
“I think you dodged it. You deliberately dodged it and you decided to stay at home,” he taunted. “Which I think was a mistake and I think it robs you of any credibility in attacking me or criticising me on this issue.”
His backbenchers raised a wan chorus of “Hear, hear!”
The Sinn Féin benchers were uncharacteristically quiet.
On a happier note, the Dáil speaking row rumbles on. It’s like the St Patrick’s break never happened.
Wednesday’s highlight was a spat over whether Michael Lowry’s Special Cases had been called lackeys, lads or underlings by Opposition leaders still fuming over his group of Independent TDs claiming to be both in and out of Government. The row is set to continue into next week.
The Taoiseach indicated he would force through measures to have them formally recognised as being officially all over the place, if he has to. If he does, Micheál might be wishing he was back in the Oval Office when the roaring starts.
