Serial elector of Fine Gael Taoisigh now wants a Fine Gael Uachtarán

Here is a tale of two dinners. 

This week in 2019 Mícheál Martin expounded to the Fianna Fáil annual fund-raising dinner about that permanent resident in his head - Sinn Féin. He said: 

“If we want to see the scale of the damage which a party can cause when wrapping itself in the flag but actually putting its own interests first, all you have to do is look at how Sinn Féin has left Northern Ireland without a voice at the very moment when its future is being decided.” 

Martin wanted Sinn Féin MPs to take their seats in the British Parliament and swear the Oath of Allegiance to the monarchy. Without a blush, in the centenary year of the First Dáil Éireann, the leader of the party founded by Éamon de Valera was asking Irish Republicans to put the clock back before 1918 when the Irish people decided they were finished with Westminster. And he lectured Sinn Féin about representation in the Six Counties when his Fianna Fáil party never had a single elected representative there, never stood in elections there, and where he had set his face against organising his party.

•  Fianna Fáil's disastrous presidential candidate, Jim Gavin

Fast forward to this past week and another Fianna Fáil annual dinner. Taoiseach Mícheál Martin was the main speaker again. The first course on the menu was humble pie after his disastrous choice of Jim Gavin as Fianna Fáil presidential candidate. The party was still in shock since landlord Gavin withdrew following the revelation that he had left a debt to a tenant unpaid for 16 years. Martin quickly swallowed the unsavoury starter and after that his speech was remarkable for what it did NOT say.

Only the day before the dinner Martin had said he will be voting for Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys. But in his speech to the Fianna Fáil dinner his preferred candidate’s name was not mentioned once. And Fine Gael was mentioned only in his remark that polls had wrongly predicted that Fine Gael and Sinn Féin would beat Fianna Fáil into third place in the General Election.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Fianna Fáil is not in a coalition government with Fine Gael. The dreaded c-word was glaringly absent from a speech that waxed lyrical about the Budget as if it was an exclusive construct of Fianna Fáil. 

• Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Mícheál Martin said he will be voting for Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys

Martin’s partners in government were not mentioned because the pretence must be kept up that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are totally separate and distinct. Yet the two parties are locked together by ideology, policy, vested interests and their shared determination to keep the left, led by Sinn Féin, out of government at all costs. Mícheál Martin keeps the sham going in spite of the fact that he has:

• Kept a Fine Gael government in office for four years while pretending to lead the Opposition
• Elected two Fine Gael ‘rotating’ Taoisigh in his last coalition government with Fine Gael
• Entered another coalition with Fine Gael this year with the aid of disgraced former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry.

And Martin is the man who once said: “People want Fine Gael out of office.” 

Following his recent tetchy outburst in New York where he rubbished the Border poll provided for in the Good Friday Agreement, Martin feebly tried to restore a crumb of credibility when he told the Fianna Fáil gathering: “We are a proud republican party – our belief in unity has never changed.” 

Of course this is patently untrue as far as Martin is concerned. While the Shared Island initiative has done commendable work, Martin has refused to engage in the ongoing debate on Irish Unity and the need to prepare for the referendum.  Many shades of political opinion, including some unionists and significant numbers of former unionists, are part of the discussion, but Martin cannot utter the words ‘Border poll’ without the characteristic scowl on his face. 

After his presidential election debacle Martin may soon be facing challenges to his leadership. If he is eventually toppled his successor will face two realities - the sham election fights between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are likely to become far less convincing to the voters and there is a huge responsibility on the Irish government to prepare for the Irish Unity referendum. 

Martin must also be very aware that the Catherine Connolly for President campaign has brought together the parties of the left and progressive independents for the first time in an election. That is hugely significant. Whatever the outcome - and at the time of writing Connolly is on a steady course to win - there is new hope that an alternative government to FF-FG can be achieved and that Irish Unity will be among its key objectives. 

• The Catherine Connolly for President campaign has given new hope