Opinion: The government is delighted to see the end of 2025 |
AS CHRISTMAS RAPIDLY approaches, it appears that An Taoiseach Micheál Martin will live to fight plenty more days.
He definitely has ardent critics within his parliamentary party who want him gone. They had to be hoping that the long awaited report into the process pursuant to which Jim Gavin became the Fianna Fáil standard bearer in October’s presidential election might contain a “smoking gun” or its equivalent.
Notwithstanding that the report does raise some serious questions with respect to how Gavin was chosen and precisely when the Taoiseach and his inner circle were made aware that there was an issue of a debt allegedly owed a one-time tenant by the former Dublin GAA boss, there wasn’t enough “there, there” – to use a dreadful Americanism (which the report is evidently replete with).
That said, Martin has undeniably been damaged.
The anti-Martin forces may be frustrated that the individual labelled by virtually everyone as the next leader of Fianna Fáil – Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan – doesn’t seem, publicly at least, to be all that interested. Indeed, he has expressed pretty unflinching approval of the Taoiseach’s performance. There aren’t signs of “fire in the belly.” Of course, this may be all part of a grand, longer-term strategy. We shall see.
It may be an aside, yet it is an important point that this intraparty tumult that has consumed the political chattering classes for many weeks now isn’t to the fore in the minds of the broader citizenry. Micheál Martin’s personal popularity actually improved by three percentage points in a 7 December Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll.
The Fianna Fáil leader has survived a tumultuous year for the party.........