Miriam Lord: Fine Gael’s lacklustre poll results greeted with cheer while Varadkar meets another Eurovision superfan

Mick Barry couldn’t help noticing Fine Gael’s poor rating in this week’s Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll.

The party shipped a four-point dip in support while Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s popularity slumped by six.

But was the People Before Profit-Solidarity TD for Cork North Central taking pleasure in this alarming result for the Fine Gael leader and his jittery parliamentary party colleagues?

He most certainly was.

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And while there was good news for Fianna Fáil with a three-point boost, party leader Micheál Martin suffered a four-point drop in his personal rating although he remains in second place at just one point below Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald.

Mick noticed that too.

Micheál wasn’t in the chamber on Thursday to take questions so Darragh O’Brien, the Minister for Housing, stood in for him.

Darragh likes standing in for the leader.

He really, really does.

Deputy Barry was struck by his particularly jaunty demeanour on this occasion.

“Ceann Comhairle, have you ever noticed how happy this Minister is when he takes the Leaders’ Questions?” drawled Mick, laughing to himself.

“You’re fairly happy yourself there, by the looks of things,” replied Seán Ó Fearghail.

“I wouldn’t usually describe him as being happy,” snorted Darragh.

“You’d almost think that the Minister was at an audition or something ...”

You would.

“He mightn’t be the happiest man in the House, though,” continued Mick, moving on to Leo’s disappointing poll performance and one Cabinet colleague who might be fancying his chances of engineering a coup on the back of it.

He didn’t mention Simon Harris by name.

“Earlier on, I could have sworn I saw the Minister for Higher Education skating down the corridor with a copy of The Irish Times tucked under his arm, whistling a tune and polishing a piece of cutlery.

And I don’t think it was a spoon.”

Superfans unite

There was a big welcome in Government Buildings on Tuesday for Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, who headed a two-day trade mission to Dublin this week.

His busy schedule included meetings with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and courtesy call on President Higgins.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was pleased to see him, not least because he is a living reminder that it is possible for a three-party ruling coalition to win an election.

Bettel’s Democratic Party has been in government since 2013 with the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Greens.

“I think we are quite similar in many ways,” mused Leo at a joint press conference after their bilateral meeting. “Your coalition is three parties including the Greens – two large parties and the Greens being the third. The evidence from Luxembourg shows that if a coalition government of three parties of that nature governs well, it can be re-elected.”

He reminded his friend that when they first got to know each other, people didn’t think his government would be re-elected. “And it was.”

Earlier, they were joined by the Tánaiste for lunch in Government Buildings, where one of the main topics of conversation was the Eurovision Song Contest. Varadkar and Bettel are Eurovision superfans. The two politicians attended the grand final together in Turin a couple of years ago when Ukraine was the runaway winner.

Leo went to Liverpool last month to see Sweden bag its seventh title and tie with Ireland as the two most successful countries in the competition’s history.

Bettel, who is also the minister for media and communications, was delighted to inform his fellow diners that Luxembourg is making its Eurovision comeback after a 30-year absence. He was the driving force behind its return.

Despite not having performed in the world’s biggest musical cheesefest for three decades, the Duchy prides itself on having won the title five times in 1961-1983.

Leo was thrilled for him.

And Micheál (not so hot about the Eurovision) was delighted with his gift of a Luxembourg GAA jersey. Apparently, it’s the oldest club outside of Ireland.

And Xavier told them another little known fact about the Grand Duchy: St Willibrord, the patron saint of Luxembourg, came from Ireland.

Stats and tweets

Regina Doherty, Leader of the Seanad, outed herself as an unlikely tech-head this week.

Or maybe not.

The former Fine Gael minister used her knowledge of how the interwebs work to score some nerdy points off Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns, who had just spoken in the Dáil about the massive energy consumption requirements of data centres and how they are scuppering climate targets.

A clip of Holly’s contribution went up on Twitter captioned “Data centres have exploded from 5% to almost 20% of our national electricity usage since 2015. Their consumption almost matched the growth in electricity from wind generation in 2022. And the government doesn’t seem to have any concerns about this?”

In response, Regina conducted a big data deep-trawl of the TD’s social media stats and tweeted her killer evidence in reply: “7762 tweets stored on Holly twitter account – 694 posts stored on her Instagram account and more than 200 videos stores on her FB account – if you think data storage is a problem then maybe don’t be part of the problem …..”

Tweet less to save the environment seemed to be her message to climate vandal Cairns and her smartphone.

Senator Doherty’s triumphant production of what amounted to an infinitesimal output in the greater scheme of data storage was promptly destroyed by a guffawing tech-savvy online audience.

A Soc Dem spokesperson told us: “As Minister for Social Protection, Regina Doherty infamously explained that the public services card was mandatory but not compulsory. The same mantra can be applied to our climate actions targets which are mandatory and set down in law, but apparently not compulsory given energy-guzzling data centres will blow right through them.”

Game on

All eyes were on Paschal Donohoe when he left his seat on the Government benches during Wednesday evening’s voting session and crossed the floor to engage Mary Lou McDonald in earnest and somewhat animated conversation.

Paschal did not look happy. He appeared to be giving the Sinn Féin leader quite an ear bashing.

What was going on?

Happily, after this lengthy exchange between the Dublin Central constituency colleagues, there were smiles and what looked like an amicable parting.

It didn’t take us long to find out what happened.

Earlier in the day Mary Lou hosted a meeting in Leinster House to discuss the redevelopment of Dalymount Park, home of Bohemians FC. There was a big turnout from club reps and community stakeholders along with local and national politicians including Labour’s Aodhán Ó’Ríordáin and Marie Sherlock, Fianna Fáil’s Paul McAuliffe and Mary Fitzpatrick, Sinn Féin’s Chris Andrews and Dessie Ellis, and Neasa Hourigan.

As she was wrapping up the meeting, the Sinn Féin leader thanked everyone for attending, particularly the political representatives. Then she asked if there was anyone for Fine Gael. Anyone? No? “Interesting,” she said, voice dripping in sarcasm.

We hear word got back quickly to Paschal who couldn’t attend due to ministerial commitments. A number of the people at the meeting were annoyed on his behalf as they know he is a big Bohs supporter and a regular at home games in Phibsboro.

They also knew he was heavily involved in brokering the agreement in 2015 when Dublin City Council bought the historic Dalymount ground from the club after it got into financial difficulties.

Bohemians is now flying as a progressive League of Ireland club boasting an impressive relationship with the local community.

“Paschal loves Bohs and Spurs and was really put out by Mary Lou’s insinuation so he went over to have a bit of a word,” explained a supporter who was at the meeting. “In fairness to her, she heard what he said and apparently gave him a very gracious apology.”

Ring-fenced

It was all going on during that block voting session.

After Paschal went over to have it out with Mary Lou, Fine Gael’s Michael Ring marched over to where the Taoiseach and Tánaiste were sitting and proceeded to tear strips off one or both of them.

The Mouth of Mayo, who is a former minister, was very exercised, waving his hands about as he talked furiously at them.

Micheál Martin seemed to be getting the brunt of the tirade as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil colleagues looked on in bemused silence.

After a good five minutes, the Ringer returned to his seat.

According to witnesses, it was something to do with passports and people experiencing difficulties when they have to resubmit their applications. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál was most in his sights.

“He didn’t spare the two of them. It was mighty,” said a Government backbencher afterwards.

Ringer had a good week.

He had a good row with the main men in the Dáil and then followed it with the opening of the €300 million final section of the N5 dual carriageway from Westport to Turlough.

“Jesus Christ, but it’s only fantastic!” he told us after Leo Varadkar, none the worse for his dressing down the previous evening, did the official honours in Westport on Thursday morning.

“The Pee Flynn Highway is only in the ha’penny place with this new road. Flynn’s road is over now. They’re calling this one The Ring Road. The money was allocated when I was a Minister and we got it done before Eamon Ryan and the Greens could shut us down.”

Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny made a brief appearance on the day and had a brief conversation with his successor before nipping away.

“Oh, it was some day yesterday. Some day. Look it, Jesus Christ it’s a fablis road. Fablis.”

So you’re running again in the next election, Michael?

“Oh, God yes.”