The 24 hours in which Fianna Fáil threw away their chance of power
As a child, the Stations of the Cross were very familiar to me, as most others schooled in the Catholic faith.
Yesterday, like Jesus did, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny fell for the third time, and failed in his bid to be re-elected to the highest political office in the land.
Having been condemned to this fate by the electorate, Kenny fell for the first time when the Dáil first met on March 10, and then for a second time on April 6.
Yesterday, Kenny was defeated by a margin of 77 votes to 52, with the acting Taoiseach’s nomination being supported by all 50 Fine Gael TDs, Michael Lowry, and, for the first time, Dublin South-West TD Katherine Zappone.
Her decision to support Kenny was praised by Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, who called on other Independents to take a risk.
This was after Ms Zappone took to Twitter yesterday morning to declare her intention to abstain in the vote.
That tweet prompted a phone call from Kenny himself.
We don’t know what exactly was promised but “Minister Zappone” was a much repeated phrase around the corridors of Leinster House.
Today, I reached a decision on Government formation, and voting for a Taoiseach. #Dail pic.twitter.com/kNiisEAvj2
— Katherine Zappone (@k_zappone) April 14, 2016
Her decision to back Kenny was at odds with the will of 14 other Independents, who voted en bloc to abstain from supporting either Kenny or Martin.
That was significant, as we know that eight of them the night before were ready to back Martin as taoiseach, which would have gone a long way to seeing him take the office.
But the decision by Fianna Fáil to issue a “put up and shut up” threat to the Independents went down so badly as to force Mattie McGrath, the Healy-Raes, Michael Collins, Shane Ross, Finian McGrath, John Halligan, and Michael Fitzmaurice to abandon their willingness to back Martin.
It was the 24 hours when Martin threw away his chance to become taoiseach.
But, feeling their intentions were not clear enough, Martin and others in Fianna Fáil, issued their “put up or shut up” threat to them, which immediately caused fury.
In early morning contacts, Martin insisted no threats were issued but said he could not withdraw it as it would cause more trouble.
So enraged were the Independents that they immediately abandoned their positions.
At a hastily arranged meeting yesterday in Agriculture House, beside the Dáil where many of the Independents have their offices, the decision to abstain en masse was reached.
Seven of the Independents had sought a meeting in Leinster House but they couldn’t get a room. They proceeded to go up to ‘Ag House’, where some of the others were gathered in Michael Harty’s office.
The meeting was convened and chaired by Michael Healy- Rae, but it was an intervention by the well-respected Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran that saw the collective withdrawal from the talks previously agreed to.
According to sources, Mattie McGrath and Danny Healy-Rae were the last two who tried to hold out in terms of doing a deal with Martin, but were swayed by the majority in the room.
The gang of 14 agreed and signed a statement announcing their intentions. Denis Naughten dubbed the statement as the ‘Ag House Agreement’ on Twitter.
Before the vote for taoiseach was taken, Shane Ross of the Independent Alliance called for Fine Gael to deal with Fianna Fáil on a basis where there is “parity of esteem”. Kenny said that parity exists but this was rejected by Martin and several Fianna Fail TDs.
Within minutes of losing the vote, Kenny took to his feet in the Dail in which he committed to continuing in office until a government is formed.
He also issued a fresh invitation to Martin to meet to discuss how talks between the two sides could continue, with a view to forming a minority government.
For his part, Martin was also rejected by the Dáil in his bid to be elected taoiseach. He lost his vote by a margin of 91 votes to 43.
In the Dáil, Martin strongly criticised Fine Gael in its approach to the talks in recent days, as did other members of his party.
Such strongly negative comments from the Chambers twins — Jack and Lisa — Thomas Byrne and others did little to raise the hope that a deal is workable.
Once the formalities were concluded in the Dáil, Fianna Fáil held their second meeting of the day to formally consent to Martin meeting Enda.
The feeling among of some of the party’s senior players heading into the meeting was that the Fianna Fáil minority was now off the table. One or two of them admitted that they were not surprised as many in the party feel they would be better off in Opposition heading into the next election.
But one senior member said that now they are off the pitch, he was confident a deal will be done in time for next Wednesday.
The threat cost Martin eight votes yesterday, which could have made all the difference in how the vote went for Taoiseach.
Had those eight votes swung behind Martin, Kenny could very well have been forced to resign his position as Fine Gael leader.
Aside from the posturing, the problem still remains that any minority government looks most unlikely to be able to survive for more than 12 months.
The Independents are now off the pitch until Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil do a deal. Fianna Fáil have indicated that they will only facilitate a minority government when they know Fine Gael have enough Independents on board.
But which will come first and where will the progress be made?
The public is fast losing patience with the petulant grandstanding and diva-esque behaviour from our political leaders.
Next Wednesday is the latest D-Day. With all other options now exhausted, we are now facing a situation whereby a minority government must be formed or we will be back to the country for a second election.
They all say they don’t want it but their juvenille antics could see us, by default, sent back out onto the campaign trail.
New politics, my backside.
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