Whistling in the wind as time ticks for party leaders

ONE whistle, three blows: Alan Shatter out on his ear, Micheál Martin out on reprieve — and Enda Kenny looking increasingly out on a limb.

The Taoiseach finally cut ties with a Justice Minister whose methods could no longer be justified, but has it come too late to save himself?

The damning revelations of the Guerin report, and this Government’s attempts to bulldoze away the concerns of whistle-blower garda Sgt Maurice McCabe are appalling enough on their own, but Mr Kenny faces being drawn further into turmoil by the looming Cooke report and its dissecting of the sacking of former commissioner Martin Callinan.

Mr Kenny stood by the then justice minister as he denigrated and slapped down Sgt McCabe.

Mr Kenny did nothing when the then commissioner branded Sgt McCabe’s actions “disgusting”.

Mr Kenny only acted when shamed into doing so by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin waving Sgt McCabe’s dossier of allegations in the Dáil.

The upshot of that move — the hastily-convened Guerin probe — has already done for the justice minister, but serious questions must now be asked about the Taoiseach’s judgement. Mr Kenny’s failure to hear the alarm bells sounding about his choice of justice minister until they reached ear-bleed-inducing decibels was compounded by a total lack of political emotional intelligence which should have told him well before now that the garda crisis which was flagged by the GSOC bugging scandal, has been given written form by Guerin, and will soon become all-pervasive with the Cooke report, or a mooted over-arching investigation into the way policing and justice have operated in this country, was something he needed to get on top of.

The Taoiseach only seemed to realise he had to distance himself from Mr Shatter on the emergence of the garda phone tapping scandal in March when he cut the Minister out of the loop for 24 hours while he dealt with the matter himself.

This led to the ousting of commissioner Callinan. Mr Kenny insists he did not sack him. Many people do not believe the Taoiseach on this.

We will hear a lot more about exactly what Mr Kenny did — and what implications that 24 hours has for his future — when the Cooke report comes out.

Mr Kenny clearly knows he is now in the greatest moment of danger of his leadership as the appointment of Charlie Flanagan to the post of Children’s Minister is far more telling than bumping his untested mate Frances Fitzgerald up to justice.

The Flanagan move highlighted how weak Mr Kenny now is as he had to reach across to someone he deliberately left out in the cold since the heave in order to shore-up his position within the party rather than give the nod to a well-thought-of next generationer like Paschal Donohoe.

There was a fourth blow from that whistle which affects Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore — but as everyone else in the Coalition seems to ignore him, there was no point bringing it up until now.

Indeed, the weakness of Labour in the Coalition was not only shown by the Taoiseach’s casual sidelining of the Tánaiste over the Shatter resignation, but the fact that Labour lack the spine to go after what they could get.

There was talk Wednesday night of Labour taking the Justice Department if they had pushed hard enough, with Pat Rabbitte being in the frame for the role.

But in the end Mr Gilmore backed down and saw the chance for a Labour minister to take credit for garda reform, a new policing authority, and pushing through the socially progressive move of extending marriage rights to same sex couples, slip away.

How fitting that Labour launched its Euro push in a hospital earlier in the week — best to stay close to A&E given all the self-inflicted wounds the party has endured. Though, at least Mr Gilmore had a new twist on how to deal with dismal opinion poll ratings. Polls are like a “still from a movie”, he told us, before adding: “They don’t tell you how the movie is going to end.”

How true, but we can’t help getting the feeling that the movie Labour is currently trapped in is a horror movie and the ending is not going to be a happy one.

Especially for Mr Gilmore who must feel like he’s forever trapped in a basement scene with a Joan Burton ravenous for power.

Mr Gilmore’s situation is made worse with the knowledge that there is only one seat left in the lifeboat and Big Phil Hogan is insisting on taking that one and sailing away to a plum commissionership in Brussels. To say Phil is suddenly demob-happy would be a major understatement.

At the launch of the water pricing regime system, the way he theatrically kept knocking back his own glass of water for the photographers was reminiscent of how theatrically Joan Collins would swig a cocktail in her Dynasty heyday,

If Mr Hogan could have managed to twist his hand into an appropriate two fingered sign around the glass, it looked like he would have.

Meanwhile, over at Fianna Fiasco, they were excelling themselves in a spot of spectacular strategic incompetence as they invited Mary Hanafin back onto the ticket, then attempted to boot her off again. What a brain-storming session that must have been: “Hmmmm, we need some new blood to excite the voters — what about someone who is collectively culpable for the country’s financial collapse, who got a massive pension for her time in Cabinet for doing so, and who comes across as somewhat hectoring and bossy — yes, lets get the blessed Mary Hanafin back on board! What could possibly go wrong?”

So party bosses asked her to run on the Wednesday, then told her to bugger off on the Friday — but not until the Keystone Cops of Destiny had given her official FF nomination papers, which she duly lodged — despite Mr Martin personally pleading with her in three increasingly desperate phone calls not to do so.

Ms Hanafin is certainly not a woman to be messed with, and the shabby way in which Fianna Fáil treated her — and its inevitable outcome — left Mr Martin’s leadership under renewed pressure. Indeed, it was only the resignation of Mr Shatter that put talk of his own position on the back burner after Mr Martin played the pivotal role in forcing Mr Kenny to accept the whistle blower allegations from Sgt McCabe.

With Shatter dispatched and Hogan semi-detached, Mr Kenny is fast running out of close allies — and the Cooke report could mean he is also running out of time.