Keeping up to speed with the new Taoiseach

It’s probably taking us a little bit of time to realise that it’s going to take us a little bit of time to get used to this. In an era of fastmoving rolling news — invented by one OJ Simpson in a white Bronco all those years ago — we digest things and move on.

So Leo Varadkar stepped down. We digested it fast, priced it in, moved on. Then Simon Harris became the only show in town. We digested it, moved on. Then before we know it, he’s in the Dáil becoming Taoiseach, his proud family all there — and there’s Sinn Féin looking for an early election, Danny Healy-Rae wanting his brother to be taoiseach (not as crazy as it seems), and that hilarious joke from Heather Humphreys repeated ad nauseam about him looking like a guy on a school tour on his first day in the Dáil. Done, done and done. All digested. We moved on.

Cake and buns for the family in the Dáil, cabinet sort of reshuffled in a slightly pointless way, new energy. Done. Digested. We moved on.

Except we wake up the next morning and he’s still Taoiseach. And then it slowly dawns on us — he is the actual Taoiseach. And not just for us, but for the entire world.

It was one thing seeing him around the Dáil bubble. We take him for granted there. And we know the back-story. We know how long he’s been building up to this.

Like Leo, we know there was a sense of inevitability to this. Though like Leo, we didn’t think it would happen as soon, or as quickly, as it did.

But everything happens quickly now. And the new Taoiseach, with his new energy, seems to have speeded things up even more. He walks fast, he talks fast, he makes us all feel like we should hurry up a bit. He didn’t even have time to come into the Dáil for Leaders’ Questions on his first full day as Taoiseach. Though he did have time for a quick TikTok, almost trolling the Opposition.

But no time for trading barbs with Mary Lou. Because he was in a hurry to start talking to his fellow world leaders, to get out and rub shoulders with his peers in Europe, peers like Ursula von der Leyen. And yes. She and her ilk are his peers now.

You and Heather Humphreys may think he looked a bit like a fellah on a school tour out in Brussels. But he’s not. He’s a world leader, spearheading the recognition of the state of Palestine and dealing with migration into Europe and other world matters.

We will get used to this. We get used to everything these days. We get used to wars, plagues and computers taking over the world. It is not beyond us to get used to Simon Harris being the actual Taoiseach. We just maybe need a little bit of time. Another few days.

We know he probably finds us slow on the uptake, that he probably thinks we should hurry up a bit. And maybe we, for our part, wish he would slow down a bit, ever so slightly.

We understand he was in a hurry. But now he has arrived, so he could maybe afford to take the foot off the pedal, just slightly.

But we can do this. We will get used to him — and his new energy.