In run-up to election, Leo’s learned Murphy’s Law is real
THERE has always been a sense of detachment about Leo Varadkar. Even during the negotiations to form a government in 2016, the then health minister maintained an air of aloofness to the point where it appeared he wasn’t really all that bothered about the outcome. He should be bothered now as Taoiseach, facing a general election – with his head on the block.
And despite his incurious standoffishness, Taoiseach Varadkar must surely be wondering what he’s done to the Murphy clan that so many of them are threatening his tenure in Government Buildings.
Verona Murphy turned the by-election in Wexford from a golden opportunity to reenergise Fine Gael into an unmitigated disaster.
Dara Murphy re-introduced himself to national discourse at a time when almost everyone had already forgotten he was even there. And then he departed the scene as quickly as he’d arrived for a big €150,000 job in Europe – but only after depositing a huge political turd on Leo Varadkar’s lap.
Eoghan Murphy has been sapping Leo Varadkar’s political credibility for a long time as he’s been competing with the Minister for Bad Healthcare Simon Harris to become the most useless member of an Irish Cabinet since the foundation of the State.
And, if that isn’t bad enough, Varadkar has also had to put up with the likes of Maria Bailey and her swing-gate, compo case nonsense.
Despite the Taoiseach’s detached nature, his awkwardness in public and the obvious shyness which forms part of his personality, it must be clear to him now that with friends like that, he doesn’t need any enemies.
Another truism that Leo Varadkar must be grappling with this week is that when it rains, it pours. Homelessness figures have now passed 10,500 – up nearly 800 in a year. Shamefully, 3,826 of these people are children.
Take a bow, Eoghan.
And then, we have Angola. Fianna Fáil’s Stephen Donnelly has revealed details which show that 215,000 children have been abandoned on healthcare waiting lists, with well over 50,000 of those waiting for over a year.
The mental pictures – of children living lives of anguish and misery as they cope with dreadful conditions such as scoliosis and twisting of their spines – drawn by Stephen
Donnelly on radio this week were harrowing.
Take a bow Simon.
And we mustn’t forget the ‘c’ word – competence.
That was again front and centre on Thursday with claims that it was now ‘improbable’ the Children’s Hospital would cost €2bn. Yeah, we all believe that one!
Originally, it was reckoned this necessary medical facility would come in at €650m – about a third of what the final tally will be.
Overshadowing all this is the spectre of Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe acknowledging a likely decline in corporation tax.
Already in Leinster House they’re talking about a post-Leo world, with Simon Coveney taking the helm in Fine Gael, a job many still argue should have been his since Enda Kenny was given the heaveho. Nevertheless, Leo Varadkar is not without any hope. Come the general election, he can rely on the Cowardly Lion that is Fianna Fáil to present him with his most compelling political arguments.
Fianna Fáil’s self-described ‘restraint’ in not forcing an earlier election – in the ‘national interest’ – can be easily unmasked as duplicity on stilts.
The waiting lists got longer, homelessness increased, children’s hospital costs spiralled and everything else went bang and wallop while Fianna Fáil sat on their hands.
They chose chaos as their preferred stepping stone to a return to power.
Leo should ask: why should Fianna Fáil be rewarded for that?