It’s January and Leinster House reopens for business after the Christmas recess.
The political parties regroup and resume planning for the year ahead. Two referendums are on the near horizon with local and European elections due in the summer.
But the first item on the agenda at Fine Gael’s opening parliamentary party meeting of 2024 is neither of the above. It’s the general election.
A general election which doesn’t actually happen for another 11 months, but the mere prospect is enough to create an ongoing distraction.
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When should it be called? When will it be called?
It is the year’s great obsession.
No parties or politicians are immune. The serious business of governing and opposing goes on but the quickening drumbeat of that impending poll is always there in the background.
In October Mattie McGrath speaks for the nation when he says it’s time for the Taoiseach to go to the country.
“He has the media driven demented. He has the people driven demented. He has us driven demented. I think he’s becoming demented himself. Have a bit of cop-on and respect for the people and for this House,” cries Mattie. Call the election. “Let the dog see the rabbit!”
It’s a wonder they managed to get anything done at all.
Family and care referendums
On the Dáil’s opening day in 2024, deputies discuss the forthcoming family and care referendums. The proposal to amend the constitutional definition of a family to one “founded on marriage or other durable relationships” is scrutinised by lawyer and Independent TD for Clare, Michael McNamara, who would depart later in the year to become an MEP.
“Are we to say that a polygamous marriage is not a durable relationship?” asks Michael, citing global cultural precedents.
Such arrangements will not be recognised under the proposed changes, replies the busiest Minister of 2024, who also went on to become Green Party leader, Roderic O’Gorman.
He is the last Green standing after a harrowing end to the year for his party and remains in charge of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth until a new government is formed.
“I’ve heard the word ‘throuples’ thrown around these sort of relationships,” he adds, thinking of other unions which wouldn’t be recognised.
“What?” asks McNamara.
“Throuples,” repeats Roderic.
“Truffles?” says Michael.
“Throuples.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought you said truffles … I wondered if there were truffles in the restaurant. Sorry.”
Opinion polls weeks out from the vote suggest the Government’s proposals will sail through.
When March 8th comes around, they sink like a stone after an insipid and smug Coalition campaign unconvincingly bolstered by wishy-washy Opposition support.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the result. The world goes on.
He goes to Washington and has a big think about his future.
In Seanad Éireann, David Norris retires after an impressive 36 years’ service in the Upper House.
Housing
Housing and health, as ever, tops the list of concerns. Mary Lou McDonald says Sinn Féin wants to bring house prices in Dublin down “to around the €300,000 mark”, causing consternation among buyers who forked out considerably more for their starter homes in the capital as they contemplate a life in negative equity. Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys says you couldn’t build a house in Monaghan for that kind of money.
Addressing emergency room overcrowding, Labour leader Ivana Bacik asks Varadkar: “Will you address the Holly crisis? ... er, trolley crisis. Trolley crisis!”
That’s the general election again, weighing heavily on political minds as Labour and its determinedly estranged twin the Social Democrats – led by Holly Cairns – shadow each other in the long run-up.
Passenger cap
There is no love lost between Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary. Relations plummet early on with the Ryanair boss petulantly hurling insults at Ryan and the Greens over the passenger cap at Dublin Airport.
The Minister, asked about the constant jibes from the 63-year-old multimillionaire businessman, admits he finds some of his comments “very personally abusive”. But then, courtesy costs nothing – you can’t put a price on it, which explains a lot.
In November, Fine Gael’s Peter Burke invites local man O’Leary to launch his election campaign. He is the star turn at the Westmeath unveiling, this time slagging off teachers during his knockabout routine.
There is the usual reflex outrage from political rivals and Government politicians fall over themselves defending the teachers, but nobody really cares because it is only Michael O’Leary mouthing off again.
Mind you, Peter Burke gets re-elected and brings in running mate Michael Carrigy to boot, which will probably make O’Leary even more insufferable now.
RTÉ crisis
The RTÉ crisis rumbles on with news of the very large exit packages awarded to some senior personnel whose management decisions came under unfavourable scrutiny when the payments scandal rocked Montrose.
Then there is a major rupture in relations between the chair of RTÉ, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, and the Minister for Media, Catherine Martin. It culminates in an astonishing live interview on Prime Time where Martin is asked (as would have been expected) if she has confidence in the chairwoman of the RTÉ board. She doesn’t answer.
Martin is immediately accused of throwing Ní Raghallaigh under the bus. This is an allegation she strenuously denies as she revs up the engine and reverses over the body.
Shock resignation
Taoiseach Varadkar returns from Washington having done his St Patrick’s Day duty and stuns everyone by announcing his resignation. There is shock across the board in Leinster House.
He says he is leaving “after careful consideration and some soul searching” and for private and political reasons which he never really explains.
“After seven years in office, I don’t feel I’m the best person for that job any more,” he says. “And I think they have a better chance under a new leader. Politicians are human beings, we have our limitations. We give it everything until we can’t any more,” says the 45 year old.
He later tells the parliamentary party that he had to fall on his sword because nobody would stab him in the back.
Job in the bag
Talk turns to a successor. But Simon Harris has no time for talk. Only 24 hours after he stood with glum ministerial colleagues on the steps of Government Buildings listening to the Taoiseach’s announcement, he already has Leo’s old job in the bag.
In the immediate aftermath of the resignation, Harris and his closest advisers spring into action with a telephone blitz of TDs and Senators. Before the day is out, they have enough supporters onside to ensure success.
The following morning, party big-hitters are lining up to pledge allegiance on the radio shows. It’s all over with no shouting. All that remains is the coronation.
Young Harris doesn’t just throw himself into his new role. He flings himself into it with such intensity and passion that it reinvigorates the apathetic grassroots. They rally to his side.
“To anybody who thinks this party is tired, to anyone who thinks this party lacks energy, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he declares.
He gets a hero’s welcome at the ardfheis in a wet and windy Galway, where numbers are higher than expected and delegates are suddenly looking forward to a general election with can-do Harris at the helm.
“Not even Storm Kathleen could hold us back,” burbles Minister for Justice Helen McEntee from the podium.
Unfortunately, he runs into Cyclone Charlotte in Kanturk during the dying days of the general election and is blown off course.
Harris is elected Taoiseach by the Dáil in April.
And oldies around the country realise they are truly ancient when the leader of the country makes a point of thanking his Nana on his big day.
Recognising Palestine
In April Harris sets a record when he delivers the fifth successive State apology from five successive taoisigh.
This is long overdue vindication for the Stardust families and the loved ones they lost after the longest inquest in the history of the State found the victims of the nightclub fire in 1981 had been unlawfully killed. The original inquest ruled the fire was caused by arson, a theory the families never accepted.
In May Dáil Éireann votes to recognise Palestine. TDs applaud when the Ceann Comhairle welcomes Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid to the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery. Soon to be her country’s first ambassador to Ireland, she had presented her credentials to President Higgins earlier in the month.
On the day, Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould makes a highly emotional speech, protesters calling for sanctions on Israel are removed from the public gallery and a man is arrested after attempting to scale the railings at Leinster Lawn in an alleged attempt to remove the Palestinian flag.
Sinn Féin performance
Sinn Féin, tumbling in the polls, has a disappointing local election performance but salvages some credibility with two MEPs in the European elections. Leader Mary Lou has to contend with personal and family health issues while embarrassing internal party problems further dent her and the Sinn Féin brand.
Veteran TD Brian Stanley resigns, accusing headquarters of subjecting him to a “kangaroo court” after a party member alleges he behaved inappropriately towards her, charges the former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee vigorously denies.
The nation is agog as conflicting details emerge of what may or may not have happened when the two shared his hotel bedroom because the woman couldn’t find suitable accommodation after her car was locked in the Leinster House car park when they returned after enjoying a few drinks off campus.
Sinn Féin halts the slide in the general election, but has nothing to show for another four years spent banging the “time for change” drum. Voters opt for more of the same.
Celebrity candidates
Celebrity candidates enjoy time in the limelight during the local and European elections. Former champion jockey Nina Carberry and sitting MEP Maria Walsh, a former Rose of Tralee, take two seats in Midlands-North-West for Fine Gael with Ciaran Mullooly, RTÉ’s former midlands correspondent, bagging a berth in Brussels for Independent Ireland.
Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, the former RTÉ broadcaster who presented the Eurovision Song Contest back in the day, is elected for Fianna Fáil in Ireland South and “shock-jock” Niall Boylan comes close to causing a major upset in Dublin.
But when the chips are down in a general election, the public is less swayed by the celebrity factor. Broadcaster Gráinne Seoige, despite some heavyweight local Fianna Fáil support, is firmly rejected by voters in Galway West.
“Celebrity” gangster Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch bucks the trend by almost pulling off a daring smash and grab in Dublin Central but is foiled by Sherlock – Labour’s Maria Sherlock.
The self-regarding Hutch is mobbed by the media when he barrels into the count centre. Highly excited reporters and TV crews crowd around him. Security has to usher him through the madness.
The man is a criminal. He became very rich on the proceeds of crime. When the hysteria dies down, some members of the media feel embarrassed by their actions.
“Bloody hell. Did we just do that?”
Departures
Four leaders depart the national stage. Leo Varadkar is followed by Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, leaving Micheál Martin as the only politically surviving leader of the original Coalition band.
Two great political warriors bow out when Social Democrats co-leaders Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall announce they will not be contesting the election.
Taoiseach Simon Harris sings their praises. “Two very formidable politicians,” he says, singling out Róisín’s sterling work on the Sláintecare healthcare reform programme and Catherine’s work on the Public Accounts Committee.
And of course “they both played a major role in founding their political party”.
A party they established with Stephen Donnelly before he jumped ship and joined Fianna Fáil, and who is now sitting beside the Taoiseach as Minister for Health and looking like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him.
Monuments to wastage
Wastage is the watchword in the run-up to the general election.
News of a little bicycle stand which cost €336,000 to install on the grounds of Leinster House astonishes and appals in equal measure. This is one aspect of public spending that everyone can understand.
Along with the €1.4 million security hut, it now stands as a national monument to wastage and is a must-see attraction for visitors to the Dáil.
A perfect year ... almost
For Simon Harris, it is almost the perfect year. But there’s many a slip twixt general acclamation and general election.
At his manifesto launch, he sets out his stall. “I’m restless, absolutely restless. I’m impatient.” Then the new energy sign falls off the front of his lectern.
There is too much energy. The inexperienced Taoiseach exhausts himself and some of that valuable support he won in those starry-eyed early days in office.
Micheál Martin goes mad on social media and posts a video of his canvassing shoes.
The big television debate is a disappointment – too many speakers, too little time. It doesn’t help to change minds.
“I have no intention of propping up a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael government,” declares Independent TD for Dublin South Central Joan Collins, who formed her own political party in 2020 and was therefore invited by RTÉ to participate in all leadership-themed programmes and debates. She still doesn’t get re-elected.
In the second debate, confined to the leaders of the three main parties, Micheál Martin is asked what he thinks of his Sinn Féin counterpart, Mary Lou McDonald.
“I’m not getting into silly stuff now,” he replies.
Mary Lou, personally, has a good election, performing particularly well on the stump. In the debate, it isn’t long before she throws out her favourite phrase to describe the other two leaders: “Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
But after the election, she complains that Fianna Fáil in particular will not give her party a look-in and Micheál is refusing to meet her.
Tweedledum and Tweedlou?
The new government
The final result between the three parties is very close. The two outgoing Government parties are heading back in with Sinn Féin not within an ass’s roar of making the required numbers. But it is finally accepting it needs to forge alliances to make any headway.
After the dust clears, the party is having great gas referring to Fine Gael as “the junior partner”.
What does Micheál Martin think about that? “I would have no truck with that kind of language,” he solemnly declares.
But inside, he is laughing. And Fianna Fáil is heading back to its old party rooms on the fourth floor of Leinster House.
Simon Harris will be back as tánaiste before rotating in due course into the taoiseach’s role. He insists on parody, sorry, parity of esteem. Parity, agreed Micheál, with FF knobs on ...
Government negotiations are under way and should be concluded in late January. Michael Lowry is the power behind the Regional Group of Independents that is likely to enter into coalition with taoiseach Martin’s government. He was instrumental in striking the deal to put fellow Independent Verona Murphy, entering only her second Dáil term, into the Ceann Comhairle’s chair.
That’s the Micheál Martin who once called on disgraced former Fine Gael minister Lowry to resign after the Moriarty tribunal report found he had engaged in a “cynical and venal abuse of office” by assisting businessman Denis O’Brien in acquiring a mobile phone licence back in the 1990s.
That’s change, and politics, for ya.
Christmas AMA, part two: more questions from listeners
Jack Horgan-Jones, Jennifer Bray, Harry McGee and Pat Leahy join Hugh for part two of our annual "ask me anything" to consider many excellent questions submitted by listeners. Thanks to everyone who sent in their questions. Thanks also to all who listened to the podcast this year. From everyone on the Inside Politics team, we wish you a happy 2025.
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