Out-manoeuvred. Out of touch. Weak. Isolated.
(And that’s just what the growing number of disaffected members of Micheál Martin’s own party think of their leader)
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin is haemorrhaging support within his own ranks as a groundswell of TDs believe their seats will be in danger if he remains as leader.
On Thursday morning, the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party conducted a remote meeting via the Zoom video app after a planned in-person meeting in the Convention Centre was cancelled the night before.
Thursday was only the ninth parliamentary party meeting since February’s general election, and all but three of those have been held remotely.
Some TDs and senators believe that the leadership is using Covid to avoid face-to-face meetings.
‘The only reason Micheál Martin is not getting it in the neck every day is because he rarely meets any of the party in a formal setting anymore,’ said one TD.
The involvement of unelected officials from outside ministerial office is fuelling the unease, on top of a cycle of poor performances, nosediving opinion polls and constant outmanoeuvring by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.
Sligo-Leitrim backbencher Marc MacSharry took aim at the party leader at the meeting. Those in attendance said he told the Taoiseach to stop doing joint press conferences with the Tánaiste as Mr Varadkar was ‘wiping the floor’
‘He is constantly being upstaged by Varadkar’
with him. Mr MacSharry was also said to have compared the relationship between Mr Martin and the parliamentary party to that of a teacher and a student.
The Taoiseach responded publicly on Friday, pointing to Mr MacSharry’s omission from ministerial office as reason for his discontent.
One person at the parliamentary party meeting pointed out that no members rushed to Mr Martin’s defence, a sign that he has few soldiers left willing to fight for him.
‘The most telling thing was that after Marc spoke, nobody retorted. There was no standing up and saying, “This has gone too far, I want to distance myself from those comments,” or anything like that,’ the disaffected TD said.
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, Mr MacSharry responded to Mr Martin’s accusation by saying he was not driven by ministerial office. ‘Marc MacSharry has, since 2002, been an issues-led politician,’ Mr MacSharry said.
‘I’m an issues-based candidate. At no time was there an expectation and consequently there was no surprise once the teams were announced. They’re a very capable team and they have my full support. That doesn’t take from the necessity at times to address internal issues.’
The sentiment of Mr MacSharry’s comments is shared widely within the party, with many Fianna Fáil TDs feeling their leader simply doesn’t know how to compete with Mr Varadkar. One veteran TD told the MoS: ‘Leo is upstaging Micheál all the time… himself and Simon
Harris are announcing all the good news and letting Stephen Donnelly and Micheál announce the bad news.
‘Micheál’s afraid of ever annoying Leo and he’ll end up without a government. He can’t afford that.’ However, not everyone is taking aim at Mr Martin. Longford-Westmeath TD Joe Flaherty shrugged off Mr MacSharry’s remarks as unhelpful, and gave his backing to the leader.
‘Look, I’ve heard Marc MacSharry’s comments several times before. We’ve work to do and we need to get on with it,’ he said. Mr Flaherty told the MoS that the criticisms of his party leader were ‘unfair’ and that the Taoiseach wasn’t getting credit for the large volume of legislation introduced and the July stimulus.
One long-term opponent of Mr Martin told the MoS that the infighting wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the party.
‘The party is never stronger than when it appears to be at war with itself, that means there’s debate going on,’ the TD said. ‘It didn’t do Fine Gael any harm when they were at war with Varadkar and [Enda] Kenny. If you have a big open party, that’s natural and then the public are talking about you and not the others.’
A common observation among TDs and senators was that Mr Martin has become isolated. Even TDs who have been around him for a number of terms are not held in confidence. ‘Nobody knows who he talks to, who he trusts, who advises him, because it’s none of us,’ said one TD.
Jim O’Callaghan, who turned down a junior ministerial position to ‘devote more time to strengthening our great party’, has been consolidating support among the disaffected. This is unmistakably the early stages of a heave against the leader, but current circumstances mean Mr Martin has a lot of road left to run and plenty of opportunity to mend any broken bridges.
There is a belief among Mr O’Callaghan’s Fianna Fáil supporters that he will make a move against Mr Martin’s leadership when his term as Taoiseach ends in late 2022.
Many who are unhappy with the party’s course say that former Agriculture minister Barry Cowen will join the revolt as part of a ‘rural-city’ dream team.
On Tuesday, Mr O’Callaghan addressed an online Fianna Fáil event called ‘Renewal and Strengthening with Jim O’Callaghan’ in what will be one of many speaking events to grassroots members around the country in a bid to build support for his eventual leadership challenge. For now, there is a belief that Mr Martin should be allowed continue to the point where he hands over to Leo Varadkar. However, a number of influential TDs have issued a warning that if Fianna Fáil’s pattern of chaos in Government continues, things may change rapidly.
A TD who is a close supporter of Mr O’Callaghan told the MoS: ‘Right now a lot of people are in new jobs, and in the middle of Covid it would not be right to move against Micheál. But Jim is one of those who is unimpressed with how it’s going. He’s watching. Closely.’
A close supporter of Barry Cowen, who is still seething after being sacked from Cabinet, said that he will support any moves by Mr O’Callaghan.
There are also a number of TDs who believe that the one relative success among Mr Martin’s Fianna Fáil selections – Norma Foley – should be made the deputy leader.
There is huge frustration in Fianna Fáil that seven months after one of the most dispiriting elections in the party’s history there is no movement for review of the performance and no sign of reform.
‘It was a campaign from 15 or 20 years ago, which is no surprise since most of the influential people in the party are around too long,’ said one TD.
One veteran TD gave a pessimistic prediction of how the next election will be played out by the two bigger parties.
‘If the polls stay the way they are, you’ll have Fine Gael fighting the next election saying, “Vote for us if you don’t want Sinn Féin”, and you’ll have Sinn Féin saying, “We’re the only party that can deliver real change, vote for us if you don’t want Fine Gael”, so where does that leave Fianna Fáil?’
‘Micheál is always afraid of annoying Leo’