Daniel McConnell: Martin's commitment to the country will be his enduring legacy 

Having now effectively named their teams for the next General Election, Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar no longer have any gifts to dole out in order to keep their troops in line.

You could have scarcely believed it had you not been there.

Sitting in the press gallery inside the thronged Dáil chamber, we watched as Micheál Martin brought the curtain down on his tenure as Taoiseach, the shortest of any in that office in history.

Martin’s time as the elected leader of the country has been blighted by Covid-19, the War in Ukraine, and the worst cost of living crisis in 50 years, and is over almost as soon as it began.

He will forever, in truth, be remembered as a stop-gap Taoiseach, temporarily interrupting Leo Varadkar’s time in that high office.

But to reduce Martin’s time to a mere afterthought would be unjust and unfair.

For all of the criticisms over health and housing, and his notoriously cautious approach to lifting pandemic restrictions on civil liberties, Martin has graced the office of Taoiseach with a decency and generosity of spirit unmatched by many.

As referred to on Saturday by Leo Varadkar, Martin made many personal sacrifices while as Taoiseach (like not having his family with him when he took up the role in June 2020) to exercise the sort of leadership that came to typify his style.

His innate courteous nature and commitment to the country, over his self or naked party interest, will be Martin’s enduring legacy.

The Irish people are no idiots. By any metric, we are a politically engaged electorate.

We have witnessed how he has conducted himself as Taoiseach and, as poll after poll has shown, increasingly people have found him to have done a good job.

He has gone from being the least popular party leader to the most popular of all.

The warmth of the well-wishes issued to him personally, even from those political parties who voted against the Government on Saturday, spoke volumes.
It was the sight of Sinn Féin TDs standing to applaud Martin in the Dáil chamber as he concluded his last speech as Taoiseach that spoke to that sense of decency.

While the government TDs, to a man and woman, rose from their seats, there was an initial pause on the opposition benches.

But then, a few like Martin Kenny and Kathleen Funchion were up quickly as they spotted their own leader Mary Lou McDonald take to her feet.

Those left sitting had no choice but to stand and applaud.

Such gestures are fraught because if you are too enthusiastic you risk annoying your own supporters. If you fail to mark the moment, as hard left TDs Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett, Gino Kenny, Brid Smith, Mick Barry, and others did, you look petty and ungracious.

For Martin, he now must adjust to no longer being top dog and having to defer to his younger rival, Varadkar.

If Varadkar’s transition to the number two job is anything to go by, then there is likely to be some considerable turbulence ahead as Martin finds his feet.

More worrying from a Fianna Fáil perspective, as Mick Clifford wrote on Saturday, is that Martin’s departure from the Taoiseach’s office is the last time for the foreseeable future that the party can hope to aspire to hold that high office.

The irony of his entire time as leader is that his position has never been more secure as it is right now, as he leaves the Taoiseach’s office with all internal dissent and disquiet settled down.

However, the stark reality is that while Martin’s popularity has increased significantly, the same cannot be said for his party.

For all of his effort in putting the country first, Martin has always been subject to internal criticism for neglecting his party and if he is to remain on as leader as we head into election season, there is a substantial body of work to do.

Varadkar's mission

For Varadkar, he returns to the top office more battle hardy and weary than the rookie idealist he was in 2017.

Having endured an 18-month bout of self-inflicted damage, Varadkar now assumes office hoping that such internal recrimination is behind him and that he can for once deliver Fine Gael some electoral success.

He struck a distinct tone of humility in his speech in the Dáil and accepted that much of his Government’s dilemma stems from a failure to deliver on promises. Failure to deliver enough houses. Failure to deliver enough hospital beds.

If delivery can improve, the hope is then the Coalition will have a reasonable chance of being able to defend its record with some credibility when it faces the electorate in 2024.

Both Varadkar and Martin eschewed the temptation to go for a more radical reshuffle and instead played it safe.

The sense was that the rotation between them and Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath was enough change for one day.

The truth is that both men had no appetite to get into the space of sacking people and bringing all the grief that such a process entails.

Playing it safe, however, was not a zero-cost game.

Both leaders have left some of their better-performing stars unhappy.

Jack Chambers has been arguably the stand-out Fianna Fáil minister since the formation of the government and has seen his popularity increase internally.

His demotion from the chief whip job to a less important junior ministry has left him disappointed, while Varadkar will now have to make amends with Brendan Griffin who was not elevated to the position of Chief Whip.

Griffin has been loyal to Varadkar but will need to be minded if such loyalty is to be demanded in the future.

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Having now effectively named their teams for the next General Election, Martin and Varadkar no longer have any gifts to dole out in order to keep their troops in line.

Those who had kept quiet in the hope of promotion will now feel free to lash out and cause trouble. With gloomier economic skies ahead, there will be plenty to make a noise about.

The changeover may now be behind us, but the coalition’s troubles are only set to increase.