Fianna Fáil call for deputy leader likely to drive Martin ‘doolally’

“And him trying to sort out his Nato meetings this weekend!,” giggled a member of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party late on Wednesday evening.

Doubtlessly, Micheál Martin would fume about a member of his party casually referring to his carefully branded Consultative Forum on International Security Policy (definitely not about joining Nato, chimed countless members of Government this week) like this, but the verdict of many members of his parliamentary party is that he will be equally peeved by the manoeuvre they put on him on Wednesday night.

As Jennifer Bray reports, they used their weekly meeting to call for a deputy leader to be appointed – a move the Tánaiste has shown little enthusiasm for, launched while he was away in London at a Ukraine reconstruction conference. “Very angry”, was one Fianna Fáil TD’s verdict on Martin’s probable reaction; likely to drive the Tánaiste “doolally”, said another. The meeting, held in the absence of many Ministers and the party leader, was the “most agitated” and “negative” in months, another source said, with members complaining of a drift.

There are plenty of good reasons for a deputy leader to be appointed: as Senator Malcolm Byrne, who raised it first, argued, strategic and election planning and medium- and long-term development can be the focus of the position, which has laid vacant since Dara Calleary stepped down post Golfgate in 2020. That’s all well and good, but the move will be seen as a clear signal from the parliamentary party that while Martin is focused on matters of State, he should tend to the garden as well. This is nothing as serious as a heave against the Tánaiste, whose position is seen as very secure. Neither is it close to the flak he would take at parliamentary party meetings during Covid, when anti-Martin plotting was constantly rumoured. And it is not assured that he will go ahead with the move, or that anyone will want the gig. But it will serve as a reminder that the parliamentary party is not permanently quiescent.

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Meanwhile, political focus today will be on the forum itself, which is the subject of our lead article.

Did the President go too far?

Listen | 48:53

Columnist and former Fianna Fáil adviser Gerard Howlin joins Hugh Linehan, Pat Leahy and Jennifer Bray to talk about two controversial topics: recent comments by President Michael D Higgins and the Hate Speech bill that is making its way through the Oireachtas.

Best reads

Conor Gallagher has a tee-up to the forum. Yesterday’s Inside Politics podcast focused on the row over Michael D Higgins’s comments on the forum and whether the President had gone too far.

Miriam Lord on the hate speech debate in the Seanad – thankfully, people will retain their right to be obnoxious, she reports.

Harry McGee drills down into the subtleties of Sinn Féin’s stance on the Special Criminal Court, after publication of a landmark report on its future and ahead of the annual renewal vote next week.

Newton Emerson pores over the politics and finances of this week’s Shared Island funding announcements.

Meanwhile, Naomi O’Leary reports on how opposition to Ireland’s plans for alcohol labelling has now gone global, with concerns raised at the World Trade Organisation by the US, Mexico and others.

Playbook

As mentioned above, the political centre of gravity shifts south for the first session of the consultative forum (proper order, say the denizens of The Real Capital). More sessions are set for Cork and Galway in the coming days.

Back at the ranch, Eamon Ryan takes oral questions at 9am, followed by Michael McGrath at 10.30am, and Leaders’ Questions at midday – Michael McGrath will change hats and take them in place of the Tánaiste, who flew from London to Cork late on Wednesday evening. In the afternoon, Government business focuses on statements on apprenticeships, further education and training, before topical issues after 4pm. The Dáil adjourns after Private Members’ time (a Bill from Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire aiming to make all of Carrigaline a rent pressure zone – all politics is local).

The Seanad will hear statements on cybersecurity and data protection at 12.30pm, before adjourning at 1.45pm.

Over at the committees, a delegation from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council will be in front of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight from 9.30am. The Public Accounts Committee has its weekly pow-wow, with tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sports and media on the agenda. The Taoiseach has a session with the working group of committee chairs, while Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly may feel a little of the afterglow from the controversy over national children’s hospital at the finance committee, where Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty awaits. The full schedule for the Dáil, Seanad and the committees is available here.