Alison O'Connor: Coalition facing mammoth tasks, not least achieving a united front

The political eye-poking continued this week, with Leo Varadkar getting into yet another contretemps with Micheál Martin, writes Alison O’Connor.

The leaders of the three Coalition parties, environment minister for Eamon Ryan, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin arriving at the Cabinet meeting in Dublin castle. Picture: Julien Behal

IT would seem very ‘us’ somehow to have battled our way through a global pandemic rather successfully, only for things to then fall apart politically. 

That hasn’t happened yet, but observing the current — very frayed — state of relations within our Government, it is difficult to feel optimism about overcoming the challenges of the near future.

Even with a fighting fit Government, the idea that the enormous challenges of climate, housing, and health can even begin to be sorted is a stretch. Instead of that, we have the distrust, distraction, and self-interest that has been going on. It does not bode at all well.

Facing a general election at the moment is not where Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, or the Green Party would wish to be. There are compelling reasons on the part of parties and party leaders to hold it together — in order to have something concrete to show for their time in power, particularly with Sinn Féin riding high in the opinion polls.

They will certainly attempt to hold tight for now, but, given how febrile things have been of late, nothing can be ruled out.

Politicians under pressure don’t make good decisions. Being tired, cranky, and resentful facing into a new political season — after a year and a half of emergency pandemic governing — is certainly less than ideal.

We don’t just need a competent Government now, we need one that can perform to the very best of its ability.

It says so much about the surrounding noise of late that it has frequently managed to drown out the €20bn Housing For All plan so recently announced, as well as the shock resignations of two of the key personnel charged with the much-needed reform of our health system. These are issues that are integral to the lives of citizens in this country.

Sorting out just one of these issues would be a huge task for any administration, but those two together make it a mammoth one, and that’s before you add in the tough new measures on climate change about to be introduced and which will need massive public buy-in. There is also a budget to be agreed upon.

Where do you begin with all of that when you are fighting amongst yourselves, flagging in the opinion polls, and the main Opposition party is managing to run rings around you?

Sinn Féin has been ably assisted by the significant missteps of Government parties in recent times. However, to be fair to the main Opposition party, and its leader Mary Lou McDonald, it has also strategised this situation extremely well.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. Picture: Gareth Chaney / Collins Photos

The Taoiseach described the party’s motion of no confidence in Simon Coveney as an attempt “to divide and conquer”. He is correct — that is an Opposition doing its job, but with a significant amount of assistance from a Government that at times seems bent on self-immolation.

Mr Coveney survived that vote of no confidence, but it did even further damage to Fine Gael, and totally put it up to the Fianna Fáil malcontents in terms of having to vote to support the minister and party that they accuse of having damaged their own party.

To be clear, it is not just the usual noisemakers in the Fianna Fáil ranks that think badly of Fine Gael — the rancour carries across the ranks, for entirely understandable reasons.

Incredibly, the political eye-poking continued into this week, with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar getting into yet another contretemps with Micheál Martin. 

Eamon Ryan, Micheál Martin, and Leo Varadkar at a press conference at Government Buildings, Dublin. Picture: Julien Behal Photography/PA Wire

The Tánaiste announced that the Taoiseach’s office was in fact told about the appointment of Katherine Zappone as a UN special envoy a day before the Cabinet meeting where it was decided.

We don’t have a visual of Leo Varadkar cocking a snook — you know, where children in a playground put their thumb on their nose, with their palm open, and wiggling their remaining fingers — but this is exactly what was going on. 

The absolute immaturity of this “sorry, not sorry” manoeuvre was yet another low.

The Taoiseach has been pushed well beyond the stage of turning the other cheek and even issued a statement, as well as the public expenditure minister Michael McGrath, making clear the Fianna Fáil position on where his party stood on the Tánaiste’s rather pathetic efforts.

However, Leo then just continues the gaslighting when subsequently questioned by journalists, saying: “We’re both right”. It didn’t particularly matter anyway, because it had been Simon Coveney’s job as a minister and Leo Varadkar’s as party leader to flag this “politician to politician”.

This sort of doublespeak at that point in a long-running controversy beggars belief. Was it said to play well with the party faithful, or simply because of an utter inability to take on the personal responsibility of being wrong? You’d have to think the latter.

I heard Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe express his appreciation for Simon Coveney as a minister on RTÉ’s Late Debate, saying that Mr Coveney had devoted hours during the summer to assist him with a family in his constituency who got caught in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. However, the Clare deputy also outlined his real political unhappiness at how the minister, and Fine Gael, had performed throughout this debacle.

Reports from the Fine Gael think-in of what Simon Coveney said to colleagues had us picturing him looking forlornly in the mirror each morning of late and not recognising himself, according to the picture painted by the Opposition and the media.

Overall, it seems to be an intellectual multi-task too far to recognise that you can be a really good Cabinet minister, work really hard, be a very pleasant person to deal with one on one, but still be capable of arrogance.

This is the kernel of all of this really. He has apologised for his handling of the Zappone affair, but he’s still going around with an air of injured perplexity at how he could be such a misunderstood foreign affairs behemoth.

It all bodes poorly for the mammoth tasks facing the Government in the short term and the political unity these will require — whether it be carbon taxes, trying to tackle the hospital waiting lists of 900,000 people, or getting more houses built for people to live in.

The resignation this week of Sláintecare executive director Laura Magahy and Sláintecare implementation advisory council chair Tom Keane is little short of disastrous for the desperately needed health reform.

Efforts will now be made to settle things down within the Coalition, but a lot of damage has been done. The next few weeks will be crucial.