Micheál Martin’s party lacks the numbers and, with only a few exceptions, lacks the passion to impact in Leinster House and the vision to reinvent itself, writes Gerard Howlin

POWER is at its most potent when it is implied. Revealed it loses its mystique. What inspires awe at a distance, provokes resentment not understanding in the actual encounter. So it proved in Seanad Éireann. Largely ignored for decades, some senators forgot that the cameras and microphones fixed to the furnishings in the Duke of Leinster’s former ballroom allow others to look in as well as them shout out.

The culture of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ persists in Ireland.

FIANNA FÁIL denied last night that pressure applied directly by the party leadership led disgraced tax evader Michael Collins to resign the party whip.