The Irish Times tells us this morning that the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, “has never stayed for a single night” at Farmleigh, the Taoiseach’s quasi-official residence in the Phoenix Park.
I say “quasi-official” because I think the whole thing sums up how we do politics in Ireland: Most countries have an official residence for the head of Government – the White House, Number 10, the Kremlin, the Elysee Palace, and so on. We sort of have a “quasi official” residence: It’s there if they want to use it but if we’re all honest we’d resent the Taoiseach who made full-time use of the place. And so we have this bizarre situation where Martin stays in Dublin at his own expense while doing a public job that requires his staying in Dublin.
For the record, I think it would be better and fairer for all just to make it the official Taoiseach’s residence and make it an expectation that the Taoiseach lived there and based his office there. It’s a nice house, and there’s nothing wrong at all with our country having a few official residences for public officials. We can be very miserly about stuff like this, and my personal view is that it’s a habit we should get out of.
J.