How. Dare. He.
The cheeeek of him!
When the Taoiseach uttered those unparliamentary words about Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin benches erupted in noisy protest. Coiled springs are easily triggered. Nothing gets past them.
The moment she heard them, Mary Lou McDonald was so scandalised a vat of smelling salts couldn’t have calmed her.
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Pearse Doherty erupted with such ferocity the glass in the chamber skylight blew out.
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn had a complete meltdown. Aengus Ó Snodaigh spontaneously combusted. Louise O’Reilly went ballistic.
Or at least that is what would normally happen.
But, most unusually, it took a while for the “pingin” to drop. The Sinn Féin ranks appeared strangely unmoved when the Taoiseach made a most egregious accusation against their leader.
He called her a liar. Worse still, he called her a liar in Irish, surely debasing our cherished native tongue.
“Is oth liom a rá go bhfuil an Teachta Dála ag insint bréaga arís. Níl aon rud cruinn in aon chor sa mhéid a dúirt sí.”
Not a peep out of them.
Mary Lou, with commendable composure, did not react one little bit.
In fact, there was no reaction from deputies on any side of the House to this apparently premeditated broadside, even though they enjoy the occasional bit of parliamentary rírá agus ruaille buaille to spice up proceedings.
Mary Lou was more interested in the Taoiseach announcing he is going to abolish rent pressure zones, and she wanted to know what fat-cat lobbyists had influenced this decision.
“Who has your ear, Taoiseach?” she asked. “You’re singing from the same hymn sheet as the lobby groups for big institutional property funds.”
Micheál was nonplussed.
“I’ve announced?” he wondered aloud. “I didn’t announce anything.”
As bruising encounters at Leaders’ Questions go, this was fairly unremarkable.
The Opposition has had the Taoiseach on the rack since the new Dáil convened for insisting during November’s election campaign that 40,000 new homes would be built by the end of last year when independent projections indicated a much smaller final tally.
The Sinn Féin leader was now turning the screw by bringing in Fianna Fáil’s shameful Celtic Tiger relationship with property developers and linking it to current policy.
But in his follow-up reply, Micheál had some heavy ammunition up his sleeve.
Speaking of big investment funds and lobbyists, the lobbying register “makes for some very interesting reading”, he told Mary Lou. It lists “the high level of activity” of her housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin and the various companies he has met, including Glenveagh Properties, Vulcan Consulting ...
“He meets everyone,” interjected Louise O’Reilly.
Eoin is very personable.
“ ... Cairn Homes, Ibec, on behalf of Property Industry Ireland, the Irish Institutional Property, Irish Residential Properties REIT, the Construction Industry Federation CIF, Tetra Capital Limited, Hines Real Estate Ireland Limited, Beakonshaw Limited, Hibernia Real Estate Group, the Ronan Group Real Estate about the glass bottle site, Cosgrave Property Group and Bartra Capital Property Management ...”
Micheál seemed quite pleased with himself.
But why wouldn’t Eoin Ó Broin meet these groups?
“He’s doing his job,” said Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. “What’s your point?”
The point, the Taoiseach explained, is that his party has been trying to “smear me and others by association” by saying they are responding to lobbyists. “We are not.”
The time was up. Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy called on Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats.
But Sinn Féin didn’t want it to end this way.
Mary Lou had a bone to pick with Micheál. “Point of Order,” said she.
Oh, no there isn’t, said the Chair.
Oh, yes there is, said the Sinn Féin leader.
“The Taoiseach, I think, took advantage, perhaps, of you not following ...”
Verona did a double take. She’s had a rough start in the job and bristled at the words “took advantage, perhaps, of you ...”
She moved to end the exchange.
But Mary Lou was now extremely put out by what happened earlier.
It must have been delayed shock.
“He accused me, he called me a liar.”
He said it in Irish and she wanted it removed from the record.
And it went on from there.
Suddenly Pearse was roaring and Pádraig was incensed and Louise was rowing in with more indignation and the protesting grew louder and more intense.
So Verona said she didn’t hear it but would ask the Taoiseach to withdraw the remark if he made it. Did he call her a liar?
He shook his head.
Sinn Féin wasn’t doing this to get at Micheál Martin. It was to protect the honour of the new Ceann Comhairle, who doesn’t speak Irish and is at the early learner stage. By insulting their party leader as Gaeilge, sneaky Micheál tried to smuggle in his “liar” accusation under Verona’s unsuspecting nose.
Pearse, who has beautiful Donegal Irish, was outraged on her behalf. “You’re taking advantage of the Ceann Comhairle. You’re taking advantage of the Irish language,” he bellowed.
Verona was under pressure to keep order.
Sinn Féin was on the warpath.
She asked the Taoiseach again if he had used the words complained of and if so, would he withdraw them. Micheál, who speaks beautiful Munster Irish, muttered: “I was saying what the deputy was saying was untrue.”
Which, in his book, is not the same as calling someone a liar.
“Absolutely disgraceful,” thundered Pearse on Verona’s behalf. Terrible stuff, “taking advantage of the fact the Ceann Comhairle has no Irish”.
Verona must have been so grateful to him for saying that.
Anyway, she said the Taoiseach said he didn’t say it.
Paul Murphy of People Before Profit-Solidarity threw in his tuppence ha’penny worth.
“He didn’t say he didn’t say it.”
With steely resolve, the Ceann finally closed down the argument.
But one can’t blame Mary Lou and her colleagues for taking such offence.
If Micheál Martin had been disrespected in such fashion the Fianna Fáil footsoldiers would have been up on the hind legs and howling too.
Sinn Féin says the Taoiseach committed the cardinal error and dropped the actual “liar” word. Or did he?
“I am afraid to say the deputy is telling lies again” is how most would translate what he said.
Here’s Mary Lou from Leaders’ Questions last week, accusing the Taoiseach of saying “untrue” stuff about house completions.
Addressing him directly, she said: “Now your election lies have been exposed and you have been caught out.”
But that’s different from what Micheál said on Wednesday.
“I can’t rule on what I didn’t hear. I accept that you believe it was said. The Taoiseach has said he hasn’t said it,” said the Ceann Comhairle.
She suggested Mary Lou might make a complaint in writing.
That letter went in last night.
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