Politics is moving so fast now, there’s potential for a fall
Leinster House’s main players had extraordinarily hectic week
IT’S probably just as well that our politicians are taking the next fortnight off to spring-clean their constituency offices. There are many dull moments in Leinster House as TDs go through the motions of pretending that ‘new politics’ is a functioning parliament. We are treated to votes that don’t actually count for anything and late-night debates devoid of intelligent contributions.
However, the past week was anything but boring. In fact, it was frantic.
It all began on Sunday night as Tánaiste Simon Coveney prepared to board a plane from Baldonnel to Sweden for a conference.
While waiting for take-off, he was on the phone to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, discussing an ‘options paper’ compiled by gardaí and the Defence Forces.
It didn’t take them long to decide that a Russian diplomat should be kicked out of the country – but that they would sit on the announcement for a couple of days.
At the same time, the front page of Monday’s Irish Independent was starting to roll off the printing press with a story that would keep the spotlight on Mr Coveney, regardless of the new cold war. It revealed how, in a matter of weeks, he had gone from opposing repeal of the Eighth Amendment to supporting abortion up to 12 weeks.
“We are two months away from a national decision on whether or not to change our legal approach to sexual health and abortion or to stick with the status quo in place since the 1980s.
“For me, it’s about how the State responds to those desperately hard choices in deeply private moments of vulnerability and responsibility,” he said.
This landed reasonably well in political circles, with most of his party colleagues surprised by the dramatic shift but nevertheless accepting of his ‘journey’.
By Tuesday morning, however, the mood had changed as ministers learned of his unconstitutional demand for a ‘super majority’ in the event that a future Dáil tried to amend abortion laws once again.
The idea was quickly ruled out by the Attorney General Séamus Woulfe.
That same Cabinet meeting signed off the type of legislation to be introduced in the event of the abortion referendum being passed.
Health Minister Simon Harris ensconced himself in the Seanad, where he urged senators to keep the debate moving, so that he could finally set a date.
Meanwhile, Leo Varadkar caved to the relentless pressure to shelve the Strategic Communications Unit, otherwise known as his ‘spin unit’.
Of course, a review found that the unit did nothing wrong in its promotion of Project Ireland 2040 – but realpolitik suggested that it
was distracting from actual issues, such as Brexit.
Speaking of which, the Government thought that Tuesday would also be a good day to release a study warning that shortages of certain foods and drugs could be a consequence of the UK’s exit.
It was dropped on top of journalists around the same time as a report showing that the email accounts of senior officials in the Department of Justice’s policing division and secretary-general’s office had not initially been searched following a request for information from the Charleton Tribunal.
By Wednesday morning, politicians, like the rest of the country, were gripped by events in Belfast. Some felt the need to take part in the social media frenzy.
Mr Harris had to sit through another day of Seanad debates, complete with tangents about people who “made tea for the Black and Tans”, before finally confirming that May 25 would be polling day.
Standing alongside him at the announcement was Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, who had just revealed that almost 10,000 people are homeless, including 3,755 children.
In the background, Micheál Martin plotted a secret reshuffle of his Fianna Fáil frontbench.
He chose 1pm on Thursday to appoint a deputy leader, despite having repeatedly said he didn’t need one.
Yesterday, the Russians retaliated after an Irish diplomat was instructed to leave their country, but we were too worn out to get excited.
Politics is certainly moving fast.
That reshuffle sparked talk of a potential election.
If we move at the same pace as the past five days, I wouldn’t bet against something tripping themselves up and landing on the campaign trail.