Ó Cuív may look like Don Quixote tilting at Green windmills but there are many dissidents in all parties who will bide their time

ÉAMON Ó CUÍV, who celebrates his 70th birthday next Tuesday, appears at first glance to be an unlikely radical trying to upend the coalition plans of three parties. But the man they used to call “Dev Óg”, because of his striking resemblance to his grandfather and Fianna Fáil founder Éamon de Valera, is hard to pigeonhole.

Born, reared and educated in leafy south Dublin, he has over 50-plus years become a champion for communities on the western seaboard, and remains a true believer in the Gaelic-speaking world.

Critics inside his party and without will dub his attack on the Fianna Fáil-Fine GaelGreen Party coalition as something of a shilling each way.

He has used his right to speak against the coalition idea – but he will not risk Fianna Fáil expulsion because he will vote for his party leader to become Taoiseach.

For some it is reminiscent of Neil T Blaney in the 1970s. He cannot leave Fianna Fáil – but he is saddened to see Fianna

Fáil leave him. Yet a key part of his message of warning on radio yesterday will chill many Fianna Fáil diehards who may not even particularly care for Ó Cuív. Their experience and gut political instincts will say the immediate big winners in the medium term are odds on to be Sinn Féin.

Already they are listening to people like Mary Lou McDonald, Pearse Doherty and Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire picking holes in the draft government programme. It is a harbinger of tougher times when money may go scarce and recriminations about unfulfilled promises kick in.

Ó Cuív is far from alone at this stage in feeling at odds with the prospect of this coalition. There are many councillors and activists who reasonably question why they spent years pounding the beat combating Fine Gael.

Some more of them will add their grave misgivings about the Green Party’s take on the future of rural Ireland and farming as we have known it.

Ó Cuív excelled himself here; while he reserved particular condemnation for Fine Gael’s failures since 2011 on the Irish language and services to rural communities, he gave the Greens a particular rub.

“I have huge doubts about the Greens’ plans and their

outlook on the future of rural Irish life and the changes they would wish to see in it,” he said in a lengthy interview on Raidió na Gaeltachta’s flagship Adhmhaidin programme.

Later he acknowledged on RTÉ radio he got on well with the Green Party from 20072011, especially current leader Eamon Ryan. They both collaborated with success on dialling down the controversy about the Shell gas installation on the Erris peninsula in Co Mayo.

Many within the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties see Ó Cuív as “a class of a Green” when it comes to environmental and community issues. He is certainly more green when it comes to Sinn Féin and disagreement on this was a large part of why he quit the party’s deputy leadership back in February 2012.

Against all that, Ó Cuív is rather fatalistic about his opposition and reluctant to join a band of rebels against the inevitability of coalition. To some degree, he is waving a flag of opposition.

But seasoned politicians also know that if you sit on the grassy bank and watch on, your words of warning can come back into currency. The task then is to try to say “I told you so” with a modicum of grace.

So the “Micheál for Taoiseach” movement will not be stopped by Fianna Fáil dissent. More party stalwarts will vote with the head, looking to the future, than with the heart looking backwards.

Fianna Fáil’s abysmal opinion poll showings tell them government might offer chances to change their fortunes. Their latest Ipsos-MRBI poll showing for the ‘Irish Times’ has put them on 14pc – three points below their 2011 election meltdown nightmare.

The picture is even more predictable in Fine Gael. Within the party there is comparable dissent but the electoral college voting system giving 50pc to the parliamentary party, with the rest divided to other sectors, is a guarantor of victory. The noisiest coalition opponents, the councillors, rate 15pc of the overall vote.

The irony is that Fine Gael’s current poll ratings are stellar due to the coronavirus steadyas-she-goes handling. In an election, a 37pc party rating, and a 75pc approval for Leo Varadkar, would be gold dust.

But timing is all in politics. An autumn election could find a very different public mood.

So, the Greens are not the only ones with dissident concerns. Ó Cuív may look like a Don Quixote tilting at Green windmills for now.

But he has always played the long game in politics.