A contentious start for Micheál Martin as he settles old FF ‘family business’
Taoiseach spent his f irst week making new foes in his own party
NORMA FOLEY was in Arnotts when she got the call to hear she would be elevated to Cabinet as Education Minister.
It was a call few had predicted for the rookie Kerry TD – bar the political team at the Irish Mail on Sunday.
While other more canny – or some would say arrogant – TDs were sitting in the Leinster House Members’ Restaurant awaiting to hear from the Taoiseach, Ms Foley was doing a little shopping.
The Dáil was sitting in the Convention Centre on the north quays, and there was no rush south of the Liffey during a five-hour recess unless you were expecting a job.
‘When the call came from Micheál Martin, Norma was in the café in
Arnotts having a snack, she didn’t know what to say,’ said a TD.
Back in the Members’ Restaurant, Jim O’Callaghan, Barry Cowen and Darragh O’Brien waited. Mr Cowen and Mr O’Brien got the call. Mr O’Callaghan didn’t.
Friends of Mr O’Callaghan say that relations had been ‘frosty’ between the party’s justice spokesman and Mr Martin since the former expressed scepticism about the value of the confidence and supply agreement with Fine Gael 18 months ago. There was indeed little warmth between the two men when this paper witnessed them meet in a corridor of Leinster House a few months ago.
Mr O’Callaghan is very popular in Fianna Fáil, and he has an impeccable CV if the party’s stronghold was the leafy suburbs of Ranelagh, Ballsbridge and Sandymount. A former Leinster rugby forward who once played against the World Cupwinning Australian team captained by John Eales, he is a high-earning senior counsel and has further stardust sprinkled on his lofty head by his sister, broadcast star, Miriam.
But the pragmatists in Fianna Fáil believe he made a bad call last week by turning down a junior ministry. Mr O’Callaghan spoke about rebuilding the party when he explained why he was rejecting a job. ‘I want to devote more time to strengthening our great party by making it a more attractive option for young voters,’ he said. ‘I also believe Fianna Fáil needs strong voices outside government who can ensure that our party’s identity can be protected during the term of this coalition government.’
Many interpreted the above as Mr O’Callaghan preparing for a leadership challenge. But no politician in Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael has ever jumped from the backbenches to leadership. Some of Mr O’Callaghan’s supporters were making comparisons between the snubbed justice spokesman and Charles Haughey this week. ‘There is talk that Jim would take to the chicken-andchips circuit like Charlie did in the Seventies. But they were different times and Charlie had a lot of political achievement behind him already at that stage. Jim has never had a job in politics.’
Indeed Haughey had held three senior cabinet posts – justice, agriculture and finance – by the time Jack Lynch sacked him in 1970.
Haughey had first accepted the equivalent of a junior ministry from his father-in-law Seán Lemass in 1959. And he was reappointed to cabinet by Lynch in 1977 before he ousted him. It is difficult to see how Mr O’Callaghan can attract a faction behind him in a party that doesn’t have mass support any more.
It is more likely that he returns fully to his lucrative senior counsel career, which wouldn’t have been open to him as junior minister.
A source said: ‘I just don’t see how Jim inherits the leadership when there will be others working away in Cabinet and junior positions in the coming years.’
Dara Calleary had more legitimate disappointment last week, being one of the few Fianna Fáil TDs in a powerful position – deputy leader – who
‘She didn’t know what to say’
had ministerial experience. It is understood Mr Calleary was passed over for Cabinet because Mr Martin wanted to ‘hit the ground running’ in the vital ministries of health and housing. Stephen Donnelly is close to the leader and as spokesman on health he knew the brief well.
Darragh O’Brien was housing spokesman, and when one considers how bad the relationship had become between Mr Martin and Mr O’Callaghan, Mr O’Brien was the obvious choice as the necessary Dublin TD. Michael McGrath, the finance spokesman, who is often touted as a potential future leader, and is Mr Martin’s constituency colleague, also had to be in. And there had to be a woman Cabinet member in a Government that is disappointingly low on gender balance.
Mr Calleary was visibly upset in the Italian Room of Government Buildings where the new ministers waited to depart for Áras an Uachtaráin.
It is understood he told colleagues that he felt ‘humiliated’ and that he considered turning the Chief Whip position down. However, he is a perfect position to move into a full Cabinet post if the Government progresses towards a full term.
The Mail on Sunday has also learnt that hidden tensions emerged in the dramatic hour where Mr Martin shaped a Cabinet. This included a growing belief in circles supportive of Mr Calleary that ‘the fate of Dara was not accidental’.
One source said: ‘This was planned down to the most minute detail. It was like that scene from the Godfather:
today I settle all family business... that sort of stuff’.’
Mr Martin’s camp, the source added, ‘are of the belief that some months ago Dara had bad thoughts and worse still that he expressed those thoughts. The utterances got back to the Praetorian Guard surrounding the leader. They have been waiting since.’
Sources within the party have claimed that an angry spat also developed between Barry Cowen and Mr Martin during the process of Cabinet formation. Mr Cowen and Mr Martin have dismissed the claims.
Party sources however claimed that: ‘Micheál had plans to do to Barry something similar, to that which was done to Dara. The consequences of doing that for Micheál were outlined to him by Barry in a direct manner. Mr Cowen got his ministry.’
The blistering attack of Michael Moynihan was a shock but he is deemed to have been forced out of the reckoning over Cork.
Another TD said: ‘The problem with Moynihan is that he wanted so little and he knows so much.’
Despite fears that he wouldn’t make it Niall Collins, who unlike Mr O’Callaghan has widespread support and deep roots in the party, was going to be in as it would have been a danger having such a wellliked and long-serving member overlooked.
One Fianna Fáil TD who was given preferment explained why such calculating TDs like James Lawless, Willie O’Dea and Mr Moynihan strongly criticised the decisions that kept them out of junior ministerial positions.
‘To some it might not seem a big deal to become a junior minister,’ said the TD, ‘but it would have weakened me politically if I didn’t get it. They would have said in my constituency “he has no influence”, that I “don’t know what’s going on up in Dublin”.’
Separately, the MoS has learned that the grave unease is also growing within Fianna Fáil over the appointment of Mr Donnelly as Health Minister.
Sources asked: ‘What on earth is Fianna Fáil doing with a pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-legalising marijuana health minister?’
Mr Donnelly in a previous Hot
Press interview noted he would ‘like to find a way to decriminalise small quantities of weed’.
The selection of Ms Foley has also provoked additional concerns over her pro-life position amongst several civil society groups.
One concerned source warned: ‘If the sisterhood get their tomahawks into Norma, they will do damage.’
Within FF bitterness is seeping down the ranks to such an extent the former TD Margaret Murphy O’Mahony responded to new TD Christopher O’Sullivan’s tweet of ‘there’s no time to sit around... being p***ed off’ with a tart tweet of her own asking: ‘Is there not a more private forum to convey this message to your colleagues?’
By contrast, senior figures within Fine Gael commended leader and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar for his astute man-management.
One minister said: ‘It is a case study in the virtues of experience. Leo was doing more firing than hiring and Micheál was doing nothing but hiring and the latter emerges as the villain.’
Fianna Fáil, they added ‘are going to have to sharpen up in their political skills. They are starting to resemble a family at war.’
But one minister noted: ‘The most bitter of all is [Richard] Bruton, the man who was a minister under four taoisigh.’
He is, one noted ‘running to be the party chairperson now. Neale Richmond is less than impressed’.
The irony they added ‘is that Bruton was never a contender for Cabinet. The real race there was between Simon [Harris] and Hildegarde [Naughton].’
‘Leo was doing more firing than hiring’