Alison O'Connor: Martin finally looks as if he’s enjoying his time in the limelight

Micheál Martin looks like a man comfortable in his skin. That thought struck again looking at the photo of him down on his haunches earlier this week outside Áras an Uachtaráin reaching out to pet the presidential dogs. Picture: MichealMartinTD

There’s a renewed confidence to Micheál Martin these days. He looks like a man comfortable in his skin. That thought struck again looking at the photo of him down on his haunches earlier this week outside Áras an Uachtaráin reaching out to pet the presidential dogs.

“Lovely greeting by Misneach and Bród” he, or someone on his behalf, posted on his social media channels. This, from the man who would once have barely contained his derision for politicians who keep the social media “topped up” with the fluffier stuff. But scroll down now and there are plenty of photos, not quite as cute maybe, and even videos of himself — as well as some on the “record funding” for sports clubs across the country.

Micheál seems to be having a bit of a moment. You could say it’s been a long time coming. We’re a few weeks into the major Covid restrictions being lifted, the economy has taken off like a rocket, and his opinion poll ratings are up. Last week chief medical officer Tony Holohan declared it was “now deemed timely to conclude the work of Nphet”. For many people, it’s all still a lot to take in.

Even the Taoiseach must be feeling a little amazed by it all; that surprise is also felt by some of the traditionally more mutinous members of his parliamentary party who rarely missed an opportunity to take a pop at him. It’s not that there weren’t some occasions when it was warranted, but mostly in their playing of the man, it was the Fianna Fáil party that bore the brunt of the damage.

In anyone’s book, taking over the leadership of a country during a pandemic would be considered unfortunate, but to do so mid-pandemic, as he did in June 2020, even more so.

At that stage, we felt we’d heard all the lines of poetry we needed to hear and the rationale for further lockdowns, however compelling, wore very thin.

His predecessor, Leo Varadkar, had steered the country very ably through that very frightening time when the pandemic first hit. In contrast to his assuredness, Micheál Martin was rusty in the beginning.

He hadn’t been properly in the limelight for a long time. That party loyalty issue was always there in the wings; there was always the sense of wonder at how, in his decade as party leader, he hadn’t managed to do better on the loyalty/unity front. His outings in the media were so-so. He ended up having to pick a third minister for agriculture. The man who was then seen as his most likely successor — Jim O’Callaghan — declined the offer of a junior ministry.

Standing in the cavernous surroundings of the National Conference Centre, where the Dáil was then convening, and attempting to come across with authority and gravitas, was not an easy task.

Then there was the constant undermining by Leo Varadkar, who everyone, on an almost daily basis, kept calling Taoiseach, even though he was now Tánaiste. He made a habit out of being the one to be making the positive announcements on Covid.

There were further undermining tactics. Remember “if we keep doing business like this, we won’t be doing business for very long”?

Then there was the Zappone controversy and the sense that Fine Gael had attempted to pull a fast one on the Taoiseach with the failure to flag the issue.

All the while Micheál bit his tongue, on some days that must have been both literally as well as figuratively. A number of his party members became really frustrated with his failure to publicly hit back at their Coalition partners.

There were times when it felt as if he skirted very close to the edge of the pragmatism of keeping the peace in a Coalition government during a pandemic, or allowing his party to be seen to be used as a doormat.

The necessity of turning to Zoom for parliamentary party meetings magnified the whingers within the Fianna Fáil ranks to a point, at times, where it was simply ridiculous. Throw in the weekly self-aggrandising remarks of Sligo TD Marc McSharry, and you had proper farce. Now he is gone.

Somehow through it all, Micheál Martin seemed to keep faith in himself.

Now people appear to recognise his sense of public service. They’ve also heard him speak about his life experiences, not least the heartbreaking loss of two children, for himself, his wife Mary, and the rest of the family.

The fact that, according to the Our World in Data, Ireland has had fewer Covid deaths, fewer excess deaths, and fewer hospitalisations relative to our population than the majority of our neighbours, is also appreciated. With 1,262 Covid deaths per million of population, only the Netherlands is below us in Europe. People realise the importance of the success of our vaccine campaign.

Perhaps the Taoiseach has also been freed somewhat by the idea he has a time-limited period in which to do what he hopes to do.

However, the last few weeks have shown just how quickly “real life” reasserts itself, with the pressure the Government has come under on the cost of living, and, of course, housing.

As addressed here last week, the health services are also coming under renewed attention.

Now that the Dáil is back meeting full-time in Leinster House, Micheál Martin can make his presence as Taoiseach more felt — certainly, he does that in relation to his interactions with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. There are times when the two are snarling across the floor.

It’s difficult to gauge the effectiveness of this as a tactic. Still, the highly impressive ratings achieved by Sinn Féin in the opinion polls show that no matter what the improvement in Micheál Martin’s personal standing, there is a political mountain to climb ahead of the next general election.

His party colleagues have to grapple now with what do they do surrounding the rotation of the Taoiseach’s office at the end of this year when the man so many of them clearly derided is looking awfully like a political asset right now.

But they also realise that those hot political topics are still there bubbling away, not least housing. 

Do they still give the Corkman the heave-ho in the run-up to the change in the Department of the Taoiseach, or coinciding with it, or even after?

The question of who might succeed him is no closer to being answered now than a year ago.

In his recent outing with The Two Norries (a podcast series well worth subscribing to), the Taoiseach said that when he was doing his HDip for teacher training, he read a book which had this quote: “The greatest motivating thing in life is the fear of failure.”

For him now, and his parliamentary party, the issue to be grappled with is what exactly success looks like.