Leo and Micheál ignore real issues as they bicker away in phony war

MIRROR, mirror, on the wall, who is the staunchest defender of the confidence and supply agreement of them all?

The issue most obsessing the leaders of the country’s two largest political parties is not homelessness or health or housing – but rather, who is the fairest one of all in rigidly sticking to the quasicoalition deal agreed between the parties after the 2016 election.

Currently, both men are attempting to portray themselves as Snow White while casting their rival in the role of the Evil Queen.

The play-acting reached a crescendo last week when Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin went on something of a tirade, accusing his partner in their unhappy arranged marriage, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, of besmirching the reputation of his party and making eyes at the electorate.

He lambasted Mr Varadkar for having the temerity to publicly speak about his eagerness to renegotiate the infernal deal before it comes to an end, after October’s Budget.

“Leo should talk to the leader of Fianna Fáil. If he wants to change the agreement unilaterally or if he wants to do it in some other form surely he should as a basic courtesy seek a meeting with the leader of Fianna Fáil and discuss it.

“If [Fine Gael] think they are going to get a blank cheque before the Budget they can think again. That’s not going to happen,” he fumed.

Clearly not a dating guru, Mr Varadkar then accused Mr Martin of “sending a lot of mixed messages” that had left him confused about whether his intentions were honourable or not.

“Last month, they were openly talking about voting in favour of a motion of no confidence in the Housing Minister. This month, they’re talking about not voting for the Budget, so we really need to understand whether or not Fianna Fáil is committed to the confidence and supply agreement in the long term,” he wailed.

As well as signing a confidence and supply agreement, maybe the two lads should also have signed a pre-nup – penalising whichever party prematurely abandoned the deal whenever it was politically expedient to do so.

At least that would have spared the rest of us from having to listen to their incessant posturing, with each party leader trying to outdo the other in the ‘strong and stable’ stakes.

The level of political debate has descended to Mr Martin essentially calling Mr Varadkar a meanie for running to the media with complaints about his cavalier approach to any forthcoming renegotiation, while Mr Varadkar has essentially responded by calling Mr Martin a fop and a cad.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country wonders when the leaders of the two main political parties will get around to discussing the things that the rest of us are concerned about – housing, health and the homelessness crisis.

It is a truism in politics that the ones who shout most about not wanting an election are invariably doing their Machiavellian best behind the scenes to engineer one. They just don’t want to be caught in the act and risk getting the blame for any resultant chaos.

So, while Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar are loudly professing their commitment to the confidence and supply deal, you can be damn sure both men are privately planning for life afterwards.

Everyone knows this to be the case, so why the tiresome pretence that it’s otherwise?

In fact, as soon as the ink was dry on the 2016 deal, both parties were planning for its untimely demise, because no one – least of all the leaders of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael – expected it to last.

Now that it is due to come to its natural end in a matter of mere months, of course both men are planning for the aftermath – so why do they have to make such a song and dance about it?

The voters are not interested in their relationship problems. They don’t care about perceived slights or insults or the unseemly jockeying for position.

What they do care about are the thousands of men, women and children living in emergency accommodation; the fact that people are boiling alive in overcrowded and unventilated A&E units; and the prospect of the nation’s water system disintegrating in the middle of the hottest summer in more than 40 years.

Last week, for instance, the Government released homelessness figures for May which showed that the number of homeless children had increased by 38pc in just 12 months – an indictment of the Government’s abject failure to address this ongoing horror.

Despite this, both Mr Varadkar and Mr Martin spent more time hurling insults at each other last week than alluding to the fact that nearly 4,000 children in this state are now living in hotels and institutions, grotesquely named “family hubs” in an attempt to spin them into something wholesome.

The country may be basking in sunshine, but these children do not have gardens to play in and many spend their time living without the security of even a permanent hotel room, being shunted from one unsuitable location to another on a daily or weekly basis.

THE childhoods of these children are being stolen, they are being failed by a State that is supposed to protect them, and neither Mr Martin nor Mr Varadkar seems that interested.

Certainly, anyone listening to their pathetic bickering last week would have been left with the impression that homeless children are far down their list of priorities.

Top of that list is their own political fortunes, with the vulnerable forced to fend for themselves.

The spat between the party leaders is as choreographed and scripted as a WWE wrestling match. No one is buying the ‘hold me back, let me at ‘em’ nonsense.

So, can they just stop – and maybe spend some time trying to address the very real and substantial problems that are facing the country? Or will we have to endure the ‘mirror, mirror’ stuff for the foreseeable?

Top of their list of priorities is their own political fortunes, with the vulnerable forced to fend for themselves. The voters don’t care about perceived slights or insults