The leadership vacuum in our nearest neighbour, where the nation – and the rest of Europe – now waits for the Conservative Party to choose its new leader, should serve as a warning to everyone in Fine Gael.
Enda Kenny has said he will not lead the party into the next general election. For understandable reasons, he says he will continue until the next election, though he – and everyone else – knows this is not a tenable proposition. However long it may turn out to be, Mr Kenny's leadership is now in its final phase. The realities of politics mean that the process to replace him has already begun. So it goes.
Public dissent on the backbenches and the nervous reaction to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll have exacerbated latent impatience on the question of the succession in Fine Gael. Yesterday, its TDs spoke of little else; sooner, rather than later, is a common view.
Mr Kenny's Ministers were conspicuously absent when they might have been expected to be publicly pooh-poohing loose talk about the leadership. Instead, Housing Minister Simon Coveney admitted with refreshing frankness that the party would address the leadership issue "in the not too distant future". Protracted though it may prove to be, the game is afoot.
Mr Kenny’s position as Taoiseach and his party’s role in leading the Government – especially at a time of deep economic and political uncertainty in the wake of the Brexit vote on the island of Ireland and throughout Europe – mean this is more much more than merely a party matter.
Today's poll shows that leading contenders as far as the public is concerned are Mr Coveney and Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar. But with almost one in three voters undecided, these are early days. It is part of Fine Gael's conception of itself that it acts in the country's interests, rather than the party's. It is at times such as these that it is afforded to opportunity to demonstrate this is more than self-serving guff.
A leadership contest should not be a protracted battle, it should take place at a quiet time in the political and parliamentary calendar and it should cause the least disruption possible to the work of government.
These imperatives suggest two possible windows in the next year – after the October Budget, or next summer. It may fairly be expected that Mr Kenny will not be allowed to go much beyond that. Today’s poll shows that almost half of voters expect him to be replaced within a year.
Fine Gael’s wiser voices are suggesting the process should be managed to ensure a swift, organised, rancour-free succession. The history of these things would tend to suggest that is unlikely.
That is why it is up to Mr Kenny himself and to senior party figures that the responsibility now falls for ensuring Fine Gael’s affairs do not paralyse the business of governing the country.