Ireland: Martin leadership under pressure

The Irish government, like the UK, has this week begun the slow and delicate task of relaxing COVID-19 restrictions while simultaneously increasing the roll-out of vaccines. For the ruling three-party government, the move is something of a political risk. As Ken Murray reports from Dublin, failure to reduce the infection rate adequately and the declining popularity of Fianna Fáil, the party headed by Taoiseach Micheál Martin (pictured), could see a change in leadership unless opinion poll graphs start going up instead of down.

On Friday 9 April, the Cabinet of the Irish government held a late night incorporeal meeting, a process whereby a senior civil servant rings Ministers, has a one-to one chat and determines their respective position and vote on a policy matter.

At issue was a decision to add countries like France, Italy, Belgium, Canada and, interestingly, the USA to its expanding list of countries where respective visitors to Ireland must go in to strict quarantine for two weeks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants.

For many, this severe measure is seen as a last throw of the dice to not only reduce the spread of the virus but to get normal politics back on the political agenda as weary Irish people, metaphorically speaking, ‘tear their hair out’ amidst one of the most severe lockdown programmes in the democratic world.

For Micheál Martin, the coming months could determine if he is to be replaced as leader of his party and accordingly, as Taoiseach.

As one of his parliamentary TDs told The Irish Times last weekend, the jostling for positions is “relentless”, a sign perhaps that his critics within the governing Fianna Fáil Party, a centre ground pro united Ireland party, are lining up to take him out!

Put bluntly, Irish voters are turning their backs on the once unbeatable Fianna Fáil. The Party secured 22.2 per cent of the first preference votes in the General Election of February 2020 but since the Covid pandemic took effect, its popularity has fallen to 11 per cent!

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Its decision to enter a three-way coalition Government in June of last year with its erstwhile enemy Fine Gael headed by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Green Party has not delivered positive results for Micheál Martin.

With COVID being the one item that has dominated the political agenda since March 2020 and Irish people going through a painful third lockdown at Level 5, the highest of all, the government is coming under increasing attack for being seen, amongst other things, to be trailing the UK in the rollout of vaccines.

As one ageing Fianna Fáil TD (member of Parliament) who didn’t wish to be named told this reporter: “Matters are not being helped by the fact that there is a housing crisis with more and more young people struggling to get on the property ladder and the slow nature in tackling the problem is seeing a drift in our young support to left-wing parties.”

The big beneficiary in this drift is fellow republican party but much maligned Sinn Féin. It secured 24.5 per cent of the first preference vote in 2020 and managed to win 37 seats, just one behind Fianna Fáil in Ireland’s Proportional Representation system of elections.

The TD added, “Fianna Fáil under Micheál Martin has gone soft on the north [Northern Ireland] while Sinn Fein are constantly calling for a unification referendum. This is what republicans want to hear even if it’s a long way off and we are relatively quiet on the matter.

“COVID has been a disaster for us because 99% of all political activity since last year has been on tackling the spread of the virus and the tragic knock-on effect for businesses and the Irish economy.

“We’ve been struggling to get our message out on the other policy issues we are addressing. The quicker Covid goes away, the better,” he said.

Because of the way the votes fell out of the boxes after last year’s election, Fianna Fáil entered in to government with Fine Gael and the Green Party to keep Sinn Féin out!

The deal created a rotating Taoiseach arrangement whereby Micheál Martin will serve as PM until December 2022 when Leo Varadkar will then succeed him in the run in to the next election.

All this is predicated on Micheál Martin lasting that long. His survival is likely to be based on how the graphs perform in opinion polls in the coming months.

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