An FF TD paid for my fish and chips in the Dáil canteen. I knew a crisis was looming
WE do not know if this week’s events have finished off this Government, yet one thing is sure, the rotten edifice of ‘New Politics’ has crumbled for good.
The Oireachtas complex is eerily unfamiliar now. Historic Leinster House, built for the Dukes of Leinster in 1745, was being refurbished all around us as I sat with a Fine Gael TD on Thursday afternoon and he outlined his position on Frances Fitzgerald. It was totally different from what he had breathlessly related six hours earlier.
Now he was backing her. As my jaw dropped he smiled and said: ‘Lets face it, it was never going to work – the two tribes of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil hate each other.’ You may hear of emails and ethics, believe me when I say it was the old Civil War enmities at play.
Fianna Fáil’s support for Fine Gael’s minority Government was designed to give breathing space for the old political system, broken by financial collapse and austerity.
Now we face months of a caretaker government and years of endless elections New Politics was designed to prevent. It is caused by more reckless negligence at the Department of Justice.
It’s been a grim week for 67-year-old Frances Fitzgerald. Since the events that brought us to the brink this week, that happened when she was at the rogue Department of Justice, many in Leinster House suspect her explanations about a mysterious email have a darker hue.
On Monday night, a Government spokesman told journalists that it was in 2015, when a Maurice McCabe inquiry was ongoing, that Ms Fitzgerald became aware of a Garda legal strategy to undermine him. RTÉ’s Katie Hannon then revealed that the minister was sent the email in 2015. This meant the Taoiseach had misled the Dáil the week before, when he assured TDs Ms Fitzgerald knew nothing about the legal strategy.
At Leaders’ Questions on Tuesday the contagion spread to the Taoiseach. Having misled the Dáil he now looked ridiculous, and his arrogant efforts to get out of the bind made him look even more foolish.
He said he had related what he was told by the Department of Justice, and Ms Fitzgerald had done nothing wrong’. When opposition TDs demanded Ms Fitzgerald explain herself, Mr Varadkar told Leas Cheann Comhairle Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher that the Dáil would need to get legal advice. Mr Gallagher, who entered the Dáil a year after Mr Varadkar was born, dismissed him, saying: ‘I do not need legal advice on a simple question.’
It looked bad, so I went to the Dáil self-service restaurant for some comfort food, where I met a minister who was a key member of Mr Varadkar’s campaign team.
‘We don’t believe a word Frances is saying. That Department of Justice ruins people, as they start thinking spoofing through the day is an acceptable way of doing business,’ he said. ‘We’re not worried about Frances, she is at the end of her career. She looks incompetent and Leo will just convince her to go,’ he said.
The contagion was spreading to the Taoiseach. And that wouldn’t be allowed happen. Like most who work in the Dáil I went home convinced Ms Fitzgerald would resign, or be sacked. Yet that night in the Dáil she took the last refuge of a flailing politician and began three days of defending her record, rather than taking responsibility.
On Wednesday, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald and Mr Martin went for Mr Varadkar again. A lot of it was show, many of us knew Fianna Fail was telling Fine Gael that this email was a big problem.
Yet communication is not as good between Mr Varadkar and Mr Martin as it was with Enda Kenny. The ‘no surprises’ deal seems to have gone out the window.
Mr Martin was also firm with the Taoiseach on Wednesday afternoon. Back in a sparsely occupied canteen on Wednesday night, I met a Fianna Fáil TD and figured bad news was coming when he paid for my fish and chips. TDs are kind to journalists as elections approach. The member of Mr Martin’s inner circle told me Fianna Fáil couldn’t back down ‘on Micheál’s threat to Leo’.
‘We can’t keep going up the hill and not doing something on this Justice stuff.’ He, like so many Fianna Fáil TDs, was deeply sceptical of Mr Martin’s strategy.
On Wednesday, Ms Fitzgerald defended her record in the Seanad, as Fine Gael senators barracked the opposition, indicating the old Civil War blood was rising. But crucially, there were still discrepancies three days after the crisis began. She said she was given the email the same day as the department discovered it. But, in fact, she got it a week after they first discovered it.
On Thursday morning, the discrepancies continued. Before a TV appointment in RTÉ, I phoned TDs, ministers and Fine Gael. They said
‘It was never going to work, we hate each other’
‘We don’t believe a word that Frances is saying’
the only outcome that could prevent an election was Ms Fitzgerald’s resignation. Ably prompted by Sharon Ní Bheoláin I said so on RTÉ’s Leaders’ Questions.
While we were on air, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan revealed he had known about the email a week before the Taoiseach did. Fine Gael were looking more chaotic. Yet by mid-afternoon they decided to stand by Ms Fitzgerald. The ministers and TDs who told me she had to go that morning, were saying the opposite. Over the coming days, Fine Gael TDs would tell Fianna Fáil TDs they hoped Ms Fitzgerald would resign.
After a week of half truths, it took journalists to reveal the full details of the email outlining the Garda’s legal strategy to undermine Maurice McCabe. It is now known it was sent to Ms Fitzgerald, her two special advisers, the Secretary General of the Department of Justice Noel Waters, her private secretary and another senior official.
As it stands, Mr Varadkar will not accept the crisis requires Ms Fitzgerald going, but Mr Martin pulled a stunt, trying to damage Fine Gael and a minister, hoping no election would occur. He misjudged Mr Varadkar and his tribal attachment to party and colleague.
Ms Fitzgerald took Leaders’ Questions on Thursday morning and Sinn Féin put down a motion of no confidence in her that afternoon.
Fianna Fáil says Mr Martin waited for a phone call from Mr Varadkar that didn’t come. Justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan told RTÉ’s Six-One News Ms Fitzgerald had to go or the Government was finished. Mr Varadkar called Fine Gael TDs to a special parliamentary party meeting where said he would stand by Ms Fitzgerald and she would not quit.
By Friday, Fine Gael were talking about December dates as possible polling days. The Fianna Fáil frontbench met at 9.30am and Mr Martin said Government complicity in efforts to damage Maurice McCabe must be faced down.
Limerick County TD Niall Collins was one of a number of TDs who told him this was the ‘wrong issue at the wrong time’. Later on Wednesday Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar met in a neutral room between Government Buildings and Leinster House. The nondescript room at the top of a rickety staircase, is symbolically not in Government Buildings, the seat of Government. There was no change in position. Later on Friday, a senior Fine Gael figure bumped into Mr Martin at RTÉ. He said: ‘Micheál, this country cannot survive a general election every 18 months for the coming years. It will destroy us. The two of you sort this out.’ A Fianna Fáil TD met a Fine Gael minister in a rural Spar shop. The minister said: ‘Frances has to go, we all know it.’
Yesterday morning, Mr Varadkar confirmed to the Irish Mail on Sunday that Charlie Flanagan sent the offending email to the Charleton inquiry, but had not bothered to read the email at that stage – or tell his Taoiseach of its existence before he misled the Dáil, and that they both only read the email this week, 11 days after the Department of Justice found it.
The Taoiseach then met members of his party’s Executive Council in their Mount Street headquarters.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney addressed the meeting by Skype.
Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar met again in Central Dublin yesterday. But all eyes remain on Ms Fitzgerald in the hope that she will resign before the vote on the motion of confidence on Tuesday.