Martin’s leadership being compared to ‘last days of Kenny’
Fianna Fáil rebels planning a meeting while Taoiseach is in the US as...
FIANNA Fáil rebels are considering meeting about the future of the party while Taoiseach Micheál Martin is on a trip to the United States next week, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
The plot comes amid growing concern over the date of the Taoiseach’s departure, with one Fianna Fáil source comparing the dynamic in the party to ‘the last days of Enda Kenny’.
Mr Martin has said he intends to lead his party into the next election, but dissidents believe the real timeline is a post-Easter resignation.
Concern is growing even among Mr Martin’s loyal supporters that this schedule may be disrupted by an internal Dáil spat over the replacing of Fine Gael Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe with Fianna Fáil’s Pubic Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath.
They are warning that a failure by Mr Martin to secure the Finance job for Mr McGrath in an expected Cabinet reshuffle in December could trigger a leadership crisis.
Fine Gael is campaigning strongly
‘Micheál is capable of rolling over on this’
to keep Mr Donohoe in the job because of his honorary position as President of the Eurogroup, which is the collective term for the finance ministers of the eurozone.
Fine Gael’s stance comes against a backdrop of Fianna Fáil concern over Mr Varadkar’s assertiveness.
One Fianna Fáil TD said: ‘Micheál is perfectly capable of rolling over on this if he thinks it will save his skin. He is not going to die in a ditch for Michael McGrath.’
Another TD warned: ‘If Micheál concedes on this we might as well fold our tents up and go. We will be just the junior partner of Fine Gael, just like confidence and supply.’
Mr Martin attempted to put the crisis to bed this week, saying: ‘The fundamental principle underpinning the Government, which Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar were very clear about, is parity of the parties, and that means that in terms of the different portfolios, if one is Government the other is Finance. That was clear and that was understood at the time.’
In unusually direct language, Mr Martin warned: ‘The bottom line is the cohesion of the Government does depend on the parity of esteem between all the parties and respect across the board.’
But some sources in Fianna Fáil are dubious: ‘Micheál is totally capable of throwing that poor man under the bus or throwing in a few hints about the EU Commissioner’s job if it keeps his hide in the top chair for another while.’
One source loyal to Mr Martin said: ‘If Fine Gael rules the roost on this and Martin doesn’t stand up to them, it will be very hard for him to keep the lid on.’ They warned the Taoiseach ‘if he runs up the white flag, McGrath will turn on him’.
The Public Expenditure Minister has thus far avoided getting involved in any of the factionalism in Fianna Fáil.
But one party source said: ‘He carries weight. He has survived in Micheál’s constituency. He has even outpolled him. An unhappy Michael McGrath is not good news for Micheál. The balance of the party would decisively tip away from Micheál.’
Although the Taoiseach appeared to glide through the party think-in in Mullingar this week, the mood in Fianna Fáil was captured by this week’s fraught party meeting.
One source noted: ‘There was a bit of an end-of-regime mood surrounding it all.
‘The troops are mutinous but silent. We need a Leo or even a Coveney to gather around.’
In an indication of the dangers of foreign travel for embattled taoisigh, one source said: ‘There is talk of another spontaneous meeting when the Taoiseach is away next week.’
Another said: ‘There is a real endof-Enda vibe around – death by a thousand cuts. The message is, let me stay until the Budget’s done, then it’s until the ard fheis in October and then it’s let me stay until the reshuffle and then let me stay for the first six months of the new year. He is doing more laps of honour than Bertie Ahern. It’s getting to the stage that, for his
own sake, he has to go.’