“John McGuinness is on standby,” said a reporter on Morning Ireland, in suitably grave tones.
This was serious.
The Dáil would have to wait until late afternoon to find out if the understudy would get the gig, but it was highly unlikely that Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy would be chairing the evening debate about her ability to do the job.
That would have been too much to expect. There was no surprise when Leas-Cheann Comhairle John arrived to chair the 2½-hour confidence motion.
Ireland on alert after Trump imposes tariffs but relieved over pharma exclusion
For Ireland, Trump’s tariffs are bad news indeed
Trump promises new dawn for US economy, as EU says it is prepared to respond with countermeasures
Miriam Lord: The drama of the Opposition’s walkout lost its potency when government backbenchers also bailed
Poor Verona. Nobody would have been able to keep order in the madhouse that was the Dáil chamber last Tuesday. Even if she did secure the highest office in the Oireachtas thanks to a deal struck by Michael Lowry in return for his Regional Group supporting the Government, she has had a particularly torrid time in the Chair.
We hoped she wouldn’t be worrying too much about what might be said as she waited for the vote, perhaps upstairs in her sumptuously appointed office.
As it happened, the Ceann Comhairle took herself off campus and away from all the terrible things that Opposition people might be saying. Instead, while the debate raged on, she was spotted enjoying a nice dinner in Dunne and Crescenzi, the Italian restaurant near Leinster House.
Agreeing her own motion of self-confidence.
The conversation will have been good, too. One of her dining companions was Senator Michael McDowell.
This was never going to be Verona’s last supper.
Before the main feature of the day, she chaired an uneventful Leaders’ Questions when TDs were forced to go through the motions of holding a normal session on pressing issues of national and international concern.
People in the crowded public gallery must have felt a little short-changed, given the rip-roaring happenings of previous weeks.
Beneath them, all sides were on best behaviour. The only diversion was trying to find Barry Heneghan, who made the shock announcement on Monday night of his territorial estrangement from Michael Lowry. The Independent TD for Dublin Bay North said he was separating with immediate effect from the leading light of the Regional Group.
And they had seemed so close.
Sad.
Only last week, 26-year-old Barry was seated next to the controversial septuagenarian, waving and laughing with him at Opposition deputies losing the plot over the jammy speaking rights deal the group squeezed out of the Government.
But photographs of him standing beside a grinning Lowry flipping two fingers at his detractors when their side won the row didn’t go down well with some. Apparently, Barry got such terrible abuse afterwards he decided it wasn’t a good idea to remain in such proximity to the Tipperary TD aka The Kingmaker (according to the Opposition).
He sought and was granted refuge in the lost boys’ corner on the outer limits of the chamber, joining Danny Healy-Rae – who is making the best of things now that his brother Michael is firmly ensconced on the junior ministerial benches – and Eoin Hayes, the Social Democrat TD cast adrift indefinitely from the mother ship over giving incorrect information about when he disposed of shares in a company that supplies the Israeli military.
Now, if Barry decides to make a show of himself again, he will be doing it out of the eye line of reporters on the press gallery who have to lean over the ledge to see him.
The Taoiseach was happy to return to a Leaders’ Questions where he wasn’t being heckled and shouted down. He didn’t seem to mind that it looked like he had wandered in to the middle of a Barbie convention, standing in front of a wall of pink as he addressed the House.
Despite the overwhelming presence of men in his parliamentary party, Micheál Martin is invariably surrounded by women TDs during this set-piece Dáil event. On Tuesday, Chief Whip Mary Butler sat behind him wearing a blush pink jacket with Ministers of State Niamh Smith and Jennifer Murnane O’Connor (both in shocking pink) alongside her and backbencher Aisling Dempsey sitting in front of him in cerise pink.
Jennifer had to leave before the end. Timmy Dooley took her place, ruining the overall look.
It was thanks to Donald Trump that there were no big eruptions. Everyone was mindful of his tariff threats looming large on Wednesday. It was Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats who reintroduced the chosen phrase of this now-dying political crisis.
“Tomorrow, Donald Trump will take a wrecking ball to the world economy,” he said.
The Taoiseach was glad to talk about this. Trump was the reason, more than any other, that the Dáil had to move on from the speaking rights row, he argued.
There was one brief but unremarkable skirmish when the Order of Business was taken, with Sinn Féin’s chief whip, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, raising what he said was the Ceann Comhairle’s defective handling of last week’s votes to drive through the new speaking rules.
There were a few robust exchanges, but Verona remained firm in the Chair as Pádraig protested mildly.
Fianna Fáil backbencher and first-time TD Albert Dolan loudly reprimanded him.
“The Ceann Comhairle is speaking!”
The Sinn Féin veteran was scandalised by the 26-year-old’s impertinence.
“Hold on, you’re not the Ceann Comhairle, young man!” cried Pádraig, in full pearl-clutching mode.
“Ooooh!” went the Government backbenchers, skittish in the knowledge that they would soon win the confidence vote by a handsome margin.
If much of that debate would centre around Trump’s oncoming “Liberation Day”, Tuesday was Lamentation Day with both sides of the Dáil lamenting the other’s carry-on and neither side agreeing anything.
The Taoiseach set the tone for the Government with an unusually aggressive and hard-hitting speech, tearing strips off the Opposition parties and groups for their “two-month-long campaign of aggression and disruption”.
[ A more polarised, confrontational Dáil takes shapeOpens in new window ]
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers and TDs queued up to admonish Sinn Féin as the main driver of the chaos while condemning the others for joining in.
“You will not block the democratic business of this House, roaring and chanting and the blaming everyone else,” said Micheál.
Tánaiste Simon Harris nodded in approval.
“Stop shouting and roaring and hollering. Turn up for work and get on with the job,” he told simmering Opposition TDs.
Government deputies came out swinging. But for all their self-righteousness, none of them were able to justify or explain the reasoning behind their highly inflammatory insistence on driving through the new speaking rules.
The highlight came from Minister for Higher Education James Lawless, majoring in melodrama. “We are standing on a precipice, the world is burning and the barbarians are at the gate,” he cried.
Junior Minister Emer Higgins said she wasn’t speaking in support of any personality but “in the sanctity” of the Ceann Comhairle’s office.
Minister for Arts Patrick O’Donovan was typically understated. “You were an absolute, total and utter disgrace. Grown men, for the most part, roaring and shouting at a constitutional officer,” he quivered, telling the TDs across the chamber that their behaviour was like something “out of Harcourt Street at three or four o’clock in the morning”.
Not that he would know anything about that, presumably.
The Opposition fought gamely in the face of this onslaught. But they knew this particular battle was over.
Michael Lowry left after the main Government speeches but returned for the final contributions from members of his group, smiling as they spoke and silently applauding them.
And then, when the vote was taken and the result that was never in doubt was announced, John McGuinness left the chair.
Verona reappeared. Looking relaxed.
“I wish to assure members of all sides of this house I bear no ill-will and my door is always open,” she said graciously.
The new rules start today.
We’ll see how that goes.
