Micheál is steering FF to the biggest of comebacks

BY REFUSING to dance on Enda Kenny’s grave last week, Micheál Martin made a grand gesture of his magnanimity to Fine Gaelers. His high-mindedness will be a ‘welcome home’ message for the prodigal Fianna Fáilers who ‘loaned’ their votes to back Fine Gael in 2011.

Martin used a failsafe poker strategy to win the Battle for Government Buildings: an innate sense of timing and thoughtful presentation led him to make fewer mistakes than his rivals throughout the McCabe crisis. Whether his tactic was sophisticated crisis management or cynical opportunism scarcely matters now: it delivered in spades and he is most likely to be taoiseach after the next election.

He declared that neither Enda Kenny nor Frances Fitzgerald acted with malicious intent, a generosity some in Fine Gael and the Opposition interpreted as the absolution of a sanctimonious curate.

He was even more generous to the Garda Commissioner, saying she was entitled to due process – and in this his piety even exasperated some of his own frontbenchers.

It was prudent politics and the Policing Authority shares his judgment... but did Mr Martin do the right thing for the country?

On another day with a different justice spokesman, he could have reminded Nóirín O’Sullivan that conspiring to spread false and damaging information – an allegation she has vehemently denied – is a criminal offence. He could have asked, more in sorrow than anger, whether it was too much of a distraction for the Garda Commissioner to remain serving when a Supreme Court judge was investigating her office.

But if the Garda Commissioner did stand down it would trigger a domino effect: how could Frances Fitzgerald remain as Tánaiste and Minister for Justice?

It would be hypocritical for Mrs Fitzgerald to remain as Minister for Justice after putting her judgment on the line by appointing Ms O’Sullivan in the first place.

Ms O’Sullivan was deputy to former Commissioner Martin Callinan who retired two years ago – engulfed in the McCabe scandal with her predecessor Alan Shatter.

And if the Tánaiste stepped down it would be impossible for Mr Kenny to remain as Taoiseach.

A general election would almost certainly follow the resignation of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste – the appalling vista that Mr Martin will do anything to avoid.

So far, so good for the strategy developed with senior counsel Jim O’Callaghan, elected last year, appointed justice spokesman and his leader’s frontbench soulmate.

The statesman role appears to be the mature version of Martin’s virtuous youthful persona. Micheál was the boy other mothers wanted their sons to be like: good at exams, good manners and good-looking – qualities other boys either envy or dislike.

THE hard chaws in the Dáil – and in his own party – saw him as a bit of a political big girl’s blouse, a gym bunny with an organic-eating disorder and a contented domestic life. But the born-again party leader with a calm demeanour and a steely resolve will be declaring Judgment Day for the 32nd Dáil.

And he put Fine Gaelers on notice last Thursday that if they crossed him, all bets would be off for polling in 2018 – he could call an immediate election.

He shone in recent performances in the Dáil and broadcast interviews – a quality of communication he developed after an undistinguished ministerial and frontbench career stretching back to 1997.

But enormous personal losses matured him and I believe he is what he appears to be – a decent man who has learned from lifechallenging experiences.

He was underestimated when he became the leader of Fianna Fáil in 2011 when the party had barely a pulse.

Mr Martin and the party will never say it out loud but they believe they are on the cusp of the greatest comeback since Fiji recovered from 28-0 to beat Tonga 41-38 in the Pacific Nations Cup in 2010.

Yet if the sins of the Fine Gaelled government are so gross and its incompetence so rank, as he claims, why does a revitalised Fianna Fáil not remove them from office at the earliest opportunity in the country’s best interests?

Mr Martin has no doubts: what is good for his party is also best for Ireland. And Fianna Fáil’s success since its foundation in 1926 has given party members an unswerving self-belief: what would be selfserving cynicism in other parties is patriotism in Fianna Fáil.

Mr Martin’s judgment is that Mr Kenny leading Fine Gael is currently the best strategy for him to become taoiseach and for Fianna Fáil to be the main party of the next government – and therefore it is in the national interest.

But is Fianna Fáil’s naked selfinterest what the country needs facing into the biggest challenges since independence? PUBLIC affairs consultant Terry Prone offered an exclusive interview with Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan to the Late Late Show but RTÉ’s flagship talk show said: ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ The preconditions were too limiting, I hear; Ryan Tubridy was expected to stick to lifestyle chat and not mention the war – no questions about the McCabe scandal.

The Late Late declined, concerned that it was a publicrelations strategy to win sympathy for Ms O’Sullivan before the upcoming rerun of the McCabe crisis.

The embattled Commissioner duly appeared on Seán O’Rourke’s ratings-topping radio programme the following Monday. But O’Rourke did not pull his punches.

I understand that Ms Prone charges no fee for her Trojan work for the Garda Commissioner, although she also works closely with Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

However, there is no problem with a potential conflict of interest – Ms Prone’s Communications Clinic has impenetrable Chinese Walls.