Political climate suggests Denis will weather the storm
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar, having already lost a Tánaiste, will be determined not to see another Minister overboard before the next election. To do so would distinctly take the gloss off his Government, inherited second-hand from Enda Kenny, the man who managed to lose one Garda Commissioner before Leo lost another.
Keeping your key lieutenants in place is one of the obvious yardsticks by which good generals are measured, especially with an election in the offing. Defending Denis Naughten became easier almost as soon as the scandal broke.
It was for one very simple reason – the weather. The sudden prolonged burst of sunshine across the island after seven months of seemingly endless November has immediately served to distract the population into soaking up the rays.
Few will have seen the attraction of focusing on a granular political row with its attendant complicating detail. They will largely have been out of doors instead of glued to television coverage of current affairs.
The ‘noticeability’ or profile of any given scandal is important. If the public is not paying attention, individual and collective political survivability increases.
‘This is old-style politics screaming at you,’ said Mary Lou McDonald on radio yesterday, but if the people are not watching, then they are not listening either. Screeching by the Leinster House set sits uneasily with days of warmth, beer and ice cream.
Mary Lou said the Naughten affair represents ‘a cosy relationship between the political system and very wealthy interests.’ And it very well might – but the crude Dáil calculation is that it need not matter.
Because besides the weather, there is a climate. And the background meteorology is that Denis ultimately did the right thing, not what was wanted by INM.
Opposition politicians know Denis made a mistake, but his likeability simply makes most of them reluctant to wield the knife… so why should Leo?
The answer is because Mr Naughten misled the Dáil when he claimed the process was on the way and that he had ‘not made my views known’, clearly recognising that it would be improper to do so – yet he had made them known privately to a lobbyist a month before. And that was improper, as implied from the words out of his own mouth.
Leo should sack him. But he probably won’t, for reasons advanced above. But at some point the sun goes in, literally and metaphorically. And the dull days of next autumn and winter could resurrect this issue, especially with High Court inspectors at work and probing cosy relationships.