Fergus Finlay: Time for Mícheál Martin to unmask the real Taoiseach and lead

You’ve been looking for this job for nine years... you seem to have shrunk in it. We’re already hankering for Leo and the Simons

Taoiseach Micheál Martin needs to show vision, direction, purpose when the Dáil re-assembles tomorrow.

Taoiseach, you know I’ve never carried a torch for Fianna Fáil, nor Fine Gael either. That’s not where my political loyalties lie. But as taoiseach of our country in a time that’s fraught with daily risk — I wish you well. I want you to succeed. I want you to lead us through a pandemic, a hard Brexit (because that looks likely now), an economic recovery, and the building of a real climate change platform.

But Taoiseach, you’re well on the way to becoming the invisible man. And it’s got to stop. The last thing Ireland needs right now is an invisible head of government. Instead, we need someone who is visibly out front, visibly on top of a really complex brief, visibly — and volubly — leading us through a crisis that could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. We need to be seeing you, and hearing you, an awful lot more.

I’m not quite sure how this happened. It certainly wasn’t predictable. In fairness, I thought you were leading from the front over the past few years, even in opposition. In two seminal referenda, for example, you took a position that was, shall we say, not wildly popular in your own party. But you made up your mind early and expressed it clearly and cogently. There was no particular dissent, because you didn’t leave room for it.

That was real, and highly visible, leadership. Especially since some of your predecessors would have taken the opportunistic position of opposing controversial change. Remember CJ Haughey, for instance (him of all people), trumpeting his concern for family values during the attempts to remove the ban on divorce from the constitution?

And then in the general election earlier this year you pretty well carried your party on your back. You performed forcefully and well in the leaders’ debates during the course of the campaign, and there were no slip-ups of the sort that can derail an election effort. I can’t remember any other Fianna Fáil member making any contribution worth noting.

Meanwhile, your main opponents, as you would have traditionally seen them, began to stumble early on. Leo Varadkar had shone as taoiseach during the rapidly developing Brexit crisis, and was seen as having done considerable service for his country. But that didn’t save the Fine Gael party from a number of catastrophic public relations disasters as the campaign rolled on.

In the end, although I know you didn’t get the result you wanted, you brought Fianna Fáil to a position where it was the largest party in the Dáil. And your traditional enemy, Fine Gael, went down to defeat, ending up as the third largest party, behind Sinn Féin.

Most of us can remember 2011. Some of us will never forget the sense of shame, almost revulsion, at the utterly shambolic way that government fell apart, and the way we were led into the collapse of national sovereignty that Fianna Fáil’s reliance on builders, and their profligate use of cheap money, led us to.

So at the very least, you managed to lead your party, if not to anything like a majority, to the greatest comeback in Irish political history. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted — and neither would most people — that you would be in a position to become taoiseach less than 10 years after the worst defeat in your party’s history.

And that, I think, is where it all began to go wrong. Because you faffed about and let a caretaker government take charge.

As a result of the election, there were only two possibilities. Either you negotiated with Sinn Féin, or you began to form a government with you and Leo as the two senior partners. I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I believe you had a democratic duty to open discussions with Mary Lou — you know I don’t carry any torch for them either, but they got a clear mandate to be involved in discussions about government formation.

But you ruled it out immediately. And fair play, you might have been wrong but you were consistent.

Which meant there was only one option left. And it took you from February 10, the Monday after the election, until almost the end of June to do the obvious thing. Don’t tell me there were all sorts of obstacles in the way — in any parliamentary democracy, it’s the core job of the leader of the largest party after an election to form a government or admit failure. It has never taken the guts of six months before to do the people’s bidding.

And in the meantime, while you were faffing about, the pandemic hit us, and we realised just how good Leo and the two Simons are. In years to come, historians will write about great governments and the crises they faced – Lynch and the arms crisis, Lemass and economic development – that sort of thing. But in the history books, there may well be a special place for a caretaker government, with no particular mandate, who led us through the greatest public health crisis we’ve ever faced.

While that was happening, you were essentially a spectator. You could have been — you should have been – in charge.

Again, that’s unusual. Throughout my adult life, whenever there’s a mess to be cleaned up (and we won’t mention who usually caused it), we always sent for the non-FF coalition. But as soon as it got cleaned up, we wanted FF back again. Out went Garret, in came Charlie, even though we knew he was dodgy. Out went John Bruton, in came Bertie, even though we thought he was lightweight.

Because FF was good at getting things done. That’s why we always forgave them in the past — if you wanted lectures, you voted FG. If you wanted a bit of action, you went for FF.

Except this time, we’re already hankering for Leo and the Simons. They’re the people who get things done. The real taoiseach, the real health minister. That’s what people call them. No wonder Leo sounded so smug when he told us all the other day he didn’t want to be Commissioner, 'because after all I’ll be Taoiseach again in two years'. And Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness sounded so entitled when she told us she did.

It’s not great, is it Taoiseach? You’ve been looking for this job for nine years, and maybe dreaming about it for longer. And, no disrespect Taoiseach, you seem to have shrunk in it.

Never mind the reasons. The job at hand is to stamp your identity, your personality, and your considerable skills and experience to the most important job you’ve ever had.

Think of yourself as being in the dressing room. It’s half-time, and the going has been tough. Paul O’Connell would know what to do. The second half of this match starts tomorrow, when the Dáil re-assembles. He wouldn’t be calling for manic aggression. But he’d be demanding that you show vision, direction, purpose. And that you surprise them all with your confidence and good humour.

We all actually need you to get on top of this. Taoiseach, it’s time to start being taoiseach. What’s more, it may be your last chance.