This is more like it: four Oireachtas members in a rare display of cross-party harmony.
Deputies Charlie Flanagan (Fine Gael), Sean Fleming (Fianna Fáil) and Brian Stanley (Sinn Féin) and Sen John Whelan (Labour) joined forces to launch this year’s Leinster Fleadh Cheoil, which takes place next weekend in Portlaoise.
You will notice that one musical instrument is conspicuous by its absence. This is because none of the politicians wanted to be photographed holding a fiddle.
Veteran Fianna Fáil Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú will be launching the fleadh this Monday; the competitions proper begin on Friday.
The photograph marks a lull in the ongoing battle to save Portlaoise Hospital’s A&E department, with deputy Flanagan in the local firing line over his Government’s health policy. He couldn’t make a public meeting in the town on Wednesday night due to a crucial Dáil vote.
Crucial Dáil votes may become quite common in the coming weeks. Fine Gael and Labour deputies might find themselves becoming bogged down in their parliamentary duties as communities around the country step up their protests over cutbacks in local hospital services.
Government deputies such as Denis Naughten of Roscommon/South Leitrim are now in a very difficult position: struggling to appease constituents over planned closures of units while they wave Fine Gael’s party pre-election pledges in his face.
The coalition may have a huge majority, but that is of no consolation to those TDs under siege from angry voters, egged on by the opposition.
Micheál Martin has been energised by the controversy. Given that it concerns post-election U-turns, he has finally found an issue that can’t be blamed on the Fianna Fáil government.
But, under it all, Martin must have some sympathy for the beleaguered backbenchers, having once been in a similar situation. He produced the Hanly Report on the re-organisation of hospitals when he was Minister for Health in 2003. It made recommendations along the lines of what is being suggested by the current Government.
There was pandemonium when it appeared, with the Minister for Defence Michael Smith, rowing in behind the campaign to save Nenagh hospital, declaring “my constituents will not be sacrificed on the altar of Hanly”.
Following much internal dissent in Fianna Fáil, the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said the consultation process could take up to 10 years and the report ended up, typically, gathering dust.
