Analysis: New Government off to a bad start, with appointment of Taoiseach delayed by a series of blazing rows

THE new Dáil got off to a tempestuous start this week, amid ugly scenes which delayed the election of Taoiseach Micheál Martin by 24 hours and left neither the Government nor the opposition covered in glory.

A ferocious dispute over speaking saw new Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy fail repeatedly to control the house, the business of the which was halted three times on Wednesday before the session was eventually abandoned.

Depending on who you asked, it was either a cynical, anti-democratic landgrab by Government to erode opposition speaking time, facilitated by a weak and inexperienced Ceann Comhairle who is compromised by herself being a Regional Independent, or it was a cynical, anti-democratic, staged over-reaction by an opposition that blatantly bullied the chair and completely disrespected the house.

There’s probably little reason that both versions can’t be true.

Certainly the planting of four Government-supporting TDs on the opposition benches, where they could, as part of a technical group, get speaking rights, was pretty outrageous.

Claims of precedents strain credibility.

Fine Gael, under Alan Dukes, backed the Fianna Fáil minority government in the Tallaght Strategy of 1987, while Fianna Fáil supported through confidence and supply the minority Fine Gael-led government of 2016 to 2020.

The difference is that neither of those times did the opposition party have ministerial portfolios in the government they were supporting.

The response from the opposition was openly coordinated, and it was hard not to see it as a deliberate and disproportionate attempt to thwart one of the Dáil’s most important functions, the election of a taoiseach.

Having said that, it was clear that the opposition could see that the core issue — placing members of the governing parties on the opposition benches — was something that was cutting through the noise of politics and annoying people outside of the bubble of politics.

One long-time Leinster House staffer put it best, if discretely, saying: “You’re either playing for Man United or Liverpool, you can’t be playing for both at the same time.”

The net result of a bad week for politics has been the delay by a day of the appointment of a taoiseach and cabinet, and the uniting of the opposition in common purpose.

This Government may well live to deeply regret the day it decided to do business with the Regional Independents group.

Micheál Martin might vehemently deny that the Regional Independents’ de facto leader Michael Lowry was the kingmaker in this new government coalition, but, a TD since 1987 and a former Fine Gael cabinet minister, there is little doubt that the Tipperary North Independent TD is the brains of the outfit.

For all his parliamentary experience and vote-getting prowess, he seemed to get a certain glee during Wednesday’s ructions as he waved down at the Sinn Féin TDs who were baying at him.

Uniting

This fiasco has had the effect of uniting most of the opposition, and it was quite something to see Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald holding a joint press conference on the plinth with Labour leader Ivana Bacik, Michael Collins of Independent Ireland, Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit, and Cian O’Callaghan, acting leader of the Social Democrats.

While few would ever accuse Michael Collins, or his fellow Independent Ireland TD, Cork North Central’s Ken O’Flynn, of being on the left, it was interesting to watch as Labour, the Social Democrats, and the various socialist factions worked so well with Sinn Féin.

Perhaps it might be a foundational moment in the redrawing of the Irish political landscape, one that many voters have long sought.

Of course, with Ireland’s left, the first item on the agenda has always been traditionally the split, so it will be interesting to see whether the opposition — with or without Independent Ireland and Aontú, which was keeping its distance this week as its two TDs had only on Wednesday evening departed a technical group containing the four ministry-less Regional Independent TDs — can continue to co-operate so effectively against the Government.

Thursday’s sitting was a much more staid and solemn day, with Micheál Martin eventually elected Taoiseach.

The appointment of the cabinet, with only three female ministers, was a pretty dismal showing, and, heading down the main stairs afterwards, it was hard not to look at Noel Murphy’s 2018 portrait of all of the then 53 female Oireachtas members without feeling a certain disappointment.

In other news, any fears that the Healy-Raes might be quietened by their onerous responsibilities supporting the new Government seem to have been misplaced.

Although cruelly separated, with Michael sat beside Marian Harkin in the junior ministers-to-be seats and Danny languishing far away above in the Schrödinger’s Independents seats beside Michael Lowry, they still had little difficulty being heard.

Pearse Doherty’s criticisms of the Regional Independents Group elicited from Danny a howl of “Oo never done nothin’ only criticise”, while Ivana Bacik’s channeling of President Trump to term the new regime’s environmental policy as “roads baby, roads” drew a roar of “what’s wrong with a few roads?” from Michael.

Still, even if the pressures of mid-to-no-level office do spancel the Kerry Independents, the return to national politics of Dublin Mid-West TD Paul Gogarty will mean there will be at least one lonely corner of the opposition benches which will continue to seek attention.

‘Go-Go Gogarty’, as the former Green Party TD and now Independent is fondly remembered from his headline-catching stint in the 2007-2011 Fianna Fáil/Green Party coalition, was in flying form during the speeches around the nomination of the Taoiseach.

Older followers of politics may recall him bringing his then-18-month-old daughter Daisy to a November 2010 Green Party press conference, or a month later, as his then party headed toward what would turn out to be the near extinction event that preceded the one it experienced last November, when he tested the strains of the Salient Rulings of the Chair, the document which regulates the conduct of TDs.

His outburst at Labour TD Emmet Stagg — “With all due respect, in the most unparliamentary language, f**k you Deputy Stagg! F**k you!” — resulted in the discovery that the f-word was not actually on the list of prohibited terms.

Fans of Go-Go, who has recorded under the stage name His Sweet Surprise, were probably not too surprised when he managed to mangle Seamus Heaney’s “hope and history rhyme” into a tortured conjunction with Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Nothing Rhymed’, but there was far worse to come.

Addressing the Government, he said: “What comes to mind is Chappell Roan, painting a picture of what it’ll be like in five years: ‘When you think about me, all of those years ago, you’re standing face to face with I told you so’.”

Overhead, in the press gallery, Oliver Cromwell’s most famous utterance was given an additional “go”, as a note was passed reading: “In the name of God, Go-Go”.

Ireland’s 35th Government may have got off to an inauspicious start, but the 34th Dáil looks set to at least keep political reporters happy.

So it’s far from all bad.