Trouble at the top? Relations between Simon Harris and Micheál Martin are frayed

Assessing the plans for the invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003, General David Petraeus famously demanded: “Tell me how this ends.” He never got a satisfactory answer.
There has always been a similar ambiguity around how the Coalition would manage its final months. In this case, the specific question was how Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would manage to be simultaneously Government partners and electoral rivals. The signs at this stage suggest an answer to the question: not all that well.
The budget got done, as all budgets do in the end. It was marked by a scratchiness between the parties that is scratchiest at the very top. It now surrounds the last big thing that this Government has left to do: its conclusion.
As of late this week, the leaders have not yet had THE CHAT. Nobody seems to know when they will. But they’ll have to get round to it soon. As we reported on Thursday, there are a series of legislative requirements that must be fulfilled before the election is called. There are Bills that the Government wants to have done. And then there are those it must have done; the social welfare Bill, the finance Bill, the legislation to provide for the energy credits, the Dáil votes on the supplementary estimates.
Normally, these Bills would proceed through the Dáil in November and December. Instead, preparations are being made to have them fast-tracked through the legislative process in October. Already the finance and social welfare Bills are due to be okayed by the Cabinet next week. Plans are being drawn up to accelerate the legislative process so that the whole thing can be done and dusted by the end of the month – last year, it took until December to complete it. One avenue is to shorten the time between the various legislative stages.
But – and it’s a big but – none of this has been agreed by the Coalition partners.
Legally, Simon Harris could just go the Áras and request a dissolution of the Dáil from the President – but to do so would be constitutionally reckless and politically stupid. Not much point in producing an electorally-friendly (to put it politely) budget if you then proceed to blow it up. Which means that if he is going for a November election, Harris needs the agreement of his Coalition partners. And right now, there is no certainty – at all – that he will get this.
For months now, I have been of the view that a November election is likely because it is blindingly obvious that it is in the Government’s own interests for that to happen. But it is forcefully put to me from within Government that this is the wrong way to look at it. There is no such thing as the Government’s political interests when it comes to an election, I am told. There is only the interests of the separate parties. They may or may not align.
There is a view in the Green Party that it is most definitely not in their interests to have an early election; there is also a view that it will not matter much in the end. There is a variety of views also in Fianna Fáil. Among them is the belief that it will be better for Fianna Fáil to wait until next year, by which time the sheen might have gone off Harris a bit, his personal popularity (attested to by the recent Irish Times/Ipsos B & A poll, which put his approval rating at a whopping 55 per cent) might have waned and Fine Gael’s strength in the polls come down a bit. Some Fianna Fáilers I spoke to were rather impolite about their Government colleague, it pains me to say; the word “exposed” was used with some abandon.
What both Fianna Fáil and the Greens are absolutely adamant about is that they will not be hustled into an early election to suit Fine Gael.
Relations between the leaders – the essential relationship in any Coalition – is a sensitive subject that is often hard to see inside. But a certain fraying of late has been evident to most people inside the top level of government. By all accounts last Sunday’s meeting about the budget was a little on the testy side. The week before, hackles in the Harris camp were raised when Micheál Martin used his speech at the Fianna Fáil think-in to lecture an unidentified audience that the Coalition had “an obligation to govern and not engage in some form of permanent campaign”. On Thursday evening, he returned to the theme in his speech to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce dinner, warning about “political spin” and “the endless search for soft coverage”.
“Governing,” he sniffed, “is much harder work than campaigning”.
To say that it was not well-received in the Taoiseach’s office would be a considerable understatement.
“Why is Micheál so grumpy?” asks a Harris ally. Another answers that question by pointing to Harris’s personal rating and Fine Gael’s eight-point lead over Fianna Fáil in the recent Irish Times poll. Other uncharitable Fine Gaelers say that Harris’s youth and energy make Martin look, well, not young and energetic.
My guess is that it still remains in the interests of the three Government parties – yes, the three of them – to have an early election. It is certainly not in their interests to have a messy, fractious and protracted end to the Government. For now, their chief opponents remain weak, and are currently embroiled in some difficulty over a former press officer at Stormont who pleaded guilty to child sex offences. But that will not remain so forever.
There is no other logic to the budget than a 2024 election. The legislative decks are being cleared. But first THE CHAT must be had. Oh, to be a fly on the wall.