Varadkar challenge - Taoiseach can’t have it both ways

The gentlest nudge will topple the proudest citadel if it is built on sand but it is too early to characterise Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar’s provocative intervention in the penalty points row yesterday as that decisive, domino-affect nudge.

It was nevertheless commendably independent-minded and a long overdue head-above-the-parapet statement of the obvious from inside Cabinet. It is easier though to suggest that the positions of two of the main players in this melodrama — Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan — are built on sand.

Mr Varadkar’s suggestion — it was stronger than that really — that Mr Callinan withdraw comments he made at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee hearing, in which he described the actions of vindicated whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson as “disgusting”, is both the easiest and most difficult to deal with.

If Mr Callinan were to say he regretted his language — he had after all been questioned for several hours by PAC members when he used the word — but was still very unhappy about the issues involved being made public he might regain some of the credibility essential to his position. It was after all the attitude, the how-dare-they hubris revealed rather than his position that causes deep unease. It was not entirely what he said but how he said it that was so very offensive. It also went some way to confirming that senior gardaí respond poorly to criticism or even questioning.

If Mr Callinan rejects Mr Varadkar’s suggestion, the conclusion must be that he is satisfied with his PAC testimony. This would create very difficult circumstances for Mr Callinan and Justice Minister Alan Shatter, Mr Callinan’s chief buttress in this affair that just won’t go away. It might create an unwelcome, destabilising choice for Taoiseach Enda Kenny too.

It would be unacceptable, though not entirely unimaginable, if the remark and a refusal to at least modify it did not have consequences. Mr Varadkar has suggested a solution for Mr Callinan, one that offers him an opportunity to recover lost ground and avoid humiliation or worse. He would be very foolish not to avail of it. It would also be very detrimental to the force he leads if he chooses not to.

The tacit criticism of Mr Shatter by Mr Varadkar is of a different weight altogether. It is an open challenge to his position, one that has been characterised by patronising aloofness and, on occasion, offering entirely inaccurate interpretations to the Dáil. His characterisation of the whistleblowers, and an outrageous bid to undermine Deputy Mick Wallace by revealing Garda notes on him point to a familiarity with amateurish dirty tricks entirely unbecoming of his office.

It may be too early in this affair to reference the 2010 challenge to Enda Kenny’s leadership, but the fault lines are very similar. Sooner or later Mr Kenny is going to have to choose between the old nudge-nudge, nothing-to-see-here Ireland and the one he promised before the last election. If that transpires then Mr Varadkar’s intervention is very welcome in more ways than one. Indeed it might save this tottering Government from itself and go some way to restoring faith in politics.