It has not been much remarked upon, in the early days of the new year, that there is one political certainty in 2022: The year begins with Micheál Martin as Taoiseach. It will end with somebody else in the job.
Mr. Martin made a deal to take power, and at the centre of that deal was the promise that the office of the Taoiseach would be passed around like a political parcel between himself and the leader of Fine Gael. They would both get a go in the big chair for two and a half years out of the five year term of office. Mr. Martin’s turn will end at the midpoint of this Dáil, which falls around September of this year. Whether this is an assault on the dignity of the office never seemed to warrant a thought in the minds of those who did that deal, incidentally, though it really should have. Anyway, we are, as they say, where we are.
Mr. Martin may remain in office slightly beyond September: After all, he did not take up office until a few months into the term of the Dáil, as coalition negotiations dragged out. But he will be gone by December, at the very latest.
That means he has eight or nine months to change the course of history, which is not, at present, likely to remember him fondly. His term in office, to date, has been one of the most disastrous in the history of our state, for reasons which are already obvious, and some others, which are not already obvious.
Some of those reasons are beyond his control: He did not make Coronavirus. He did not unleash it on the country. By and large, he has stuck to what his officials recommend.
But he has, no doubt, been weak. At every juncture, he has allowed his medical advisors not simply to advise, but to effectively make, Government policy. In recent times, presumably with his approval, leaks have emerged that Ministers are “frustrated” with NPHET, and want to “put them back in their box”. Well, if they are out of their box, it has been, since he came to office, with the Taoiseach’s consent.
He cannot only be criticised, incidentally, from the lockdown-sceptic position. If anything, the true criticism of Mr. Martin is that he has had no covid policy of his own at all. To contrast with some other countries, we know what Boris Johnson’s covid policy is: Stay open, except in extremis. In Australia, the policy of Scott Morrison is to stay locked down, except in extremis. In Ireland, the policy has been, effectively, to muddle along and try and keep Tony Holohan happy. It’s not been a policy at all: It’s been a series of reactions, usually over-reactions, to the latest “numbers”.
But it has not just been on Covid where the Taoiseach has been a failure. He was elected, remember, on a promise to solve housing. Fianna Fáil in Government, he told the voters, would unleash the most ambitious housing policy in a generation. Where is it?
Indeed, here is a simple question: What major problem in the country existed when Mr. Martin took office, and is obviously and evidentially, as a result of his Government, less of a problem today? Take a moment to think. Especially if you are a Fianna Fáil supporter.
Before writing this piece, I did try to think of one myself, but drew a blank. In almost every major area of public policy, it is difficult to point to even one thing that has been achieved.
Indeed, Ireland has problems today that we simply did not have before Mr. Martin took office. We did not face an energy crisis before he took power. Crime and antisocial behaviour was not the ever-present that it now is in our inner cities. That is not to say he invented these problems, but it very much is to say that he has shown no interest in addressing them.
To the extent that Government has done much of anything in his time in office, those things have his signature all over them: In a few hours, the price of alcohol will increase. That is in keeping with his one political achievement in a forty year career, the smoking ban. Mr. Martin’s energies as a politician have always and ever been directed against the bad habits of the people he leads: He does not like that we smoke, or drink, or eat fatty foods, or heat our houses with the wrong kinds of fuel, or drive the wrong cars, or think the wrong things.
And so, to the extent that his Government has done anything, it has been to wage a war on the things he personally does not like: Drinking, smoking, oil fired heating, diesel cars, and so on.
In the latter part of the year, we expect that Mr. Varadkar will return to the Taoiseach’s office. It is testament to Martin’s record, so far, that many of us look forward to this prospect with something approaching optimism.