Miriam Lord: Doom and gloom in Dáil with Fitzgerald on brink

So the guards were assembling a rocket which they were going to place under a troublesome subordinate disrupting their cosy existence.

The former minister for justice looked on while this was happening, but did not pass them a spanner.

Therefore, Frances Fitzgerald had no hand, act or part in the construction of this legal scud.

But she was aware they were building it and the damage it was designed to do.

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Until she forgot about the whole thing.

Fortunately for all concerned, the Garda commissioner’s team decided to abandon their dastardly plan and dismantled the weapon.

They did it three days after Frances received an email from an official telling her that Garda top brass were planning to take down Sgt Maurice McCabe and his unpalatable truths. Unfortunately, as can often be the case, the email fell down behind a radiator in the Department of Justice, where predatory radiators live.

In the Dáil, the Taoiseach, like the chairman of a football club expressing confidence in his manager, expressed full confidence in his Minister before dumping on her department for misinforming him

Whistleblower McCabe, having suffered greatly for speaking out against the rotten culture infecting the very bones of the police force, was finally vindicated following a process which caused political upheaval at government level, cost minister for justice Alan Shatter his career and saw several senior public servants fall on their swords.

The dogged sergeant’s reward was recognition from on high that he had done the state some service and was to be cherished rather than attacked.

In the light of this, the Minister must have gone ballistic upon reading that the boys in blue were about to launch an ill-judged attack on McCabe. She didn’t.

It hardly registered at all. Which, no matter how many ways she tries to explain it, seems decidedly odd.

“I get thousands of emails. I don’t remember reading that email, as I said, but it’s likely that I read it,” Frances told the Seanad on Wednesday evening, on the second of two torrid days for her in Leinster House as her ministerial future swayed in the balance.

Potential saviour

Legal considerations emerged on Wednesday – two years on and two weeks of controversy later – as her potential saviour. The rather legalistic last line of the email concluding the minister had no “function” in relation to evidence which might be adduced at a tribunal is the one Fitzgerald hopes will save her political bacon.

However, her handling of the issue has been confusing and it's causing big problems for the Taoiseach, who has had to correct the Dáil record twice in recent days thanks to getting the wrong information from the Department of Justice. And, where Leo is concerned, Frances Fitzgerald is the Department of Justice.

The word around Leinster House on Wednesday was that he is absolutely fuming over how he has been dragged into the McCabe saga having enhanced his reputation during the last government by publicly and pointedly praising the whistleblower and his actions.

During Leaders’ Questions, with Frances sitting next to the boss and scribbling notes which he mostly ignored, the body language along the Fine Gael front bench was telling. Ministers looked worried. Afterwards, there was no parading around of TDs rallying to her defence.

Both Micheál Martin and Mary Lou McDonald excoriated the Taoiseach and his beleaguered Minister for changing timelines and details as information evolved. Leo and Frances parroted their “no hand, act or part” line so many times that the opposition began laughing at each fresh utterance.

The only thing Frances could remember about the email she couldn’t remember was its last line – that do-nothing advice, her get-out-of-jail card. Although she now also remembers getting legal advice in this regard, telling the Seanad she rechecked with the Attorney General today and was told “again” she would have broken the law had she butted in on the Garda’s legal strategy at the tribunal.

Back channels weren’t mentioned. Maybe forgotten too.

In the Dáil, the Taoiseach, like the chairman of a football club expressing confidence in his manager, expressed full confidence in his Minister before dumping on her department for misinforming him.

Snaffled by the radiators

He said he had asked for another “trawl” of documents in case any others were snaffled by the radiators. Fortunately, he very presciently told the Dáil last week that Justice is a very big department with lots people working in it, so, you know, it can be difficult to find stuff.

Leo looked disgusted. Frances looked distraught.

Beside them and behind them was a cast of Fine Gael glums.

There was a strange atmosphere in Leinster House for the rest of the day. There weren’t people calling for a head on a plate, no feverish whispering in corners, no reporters racing around looking for smoking guns.

Just worried faces, on all sides, because suddenly, the prospect of a general election had loomed unexpectedly to the fore.

What happens now, though, is out of Fitzgerald's hands. She appeared despondent

If Sinn Féin were to table a vote of no confidence in the Tánaiste, Fianna Fáil is obliged, under its confidence and supply agreement with the Government, to abstain at the very least. But given Martin’s aggressive approach to this latest McCabe controversy, and the fact that he has marched his troops up the hill more than once against Fine Gael only to march them down again, he won’t be keen to fall into line once more.

But Sinn Féin don’t want to start something which might result in a Christmas general election. Neither do Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael.

At its parliamentary party meeting last night, Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators agreed to give their leader “space” to consider the party’s next move.

Meanwhile, the monumental shambles under their noses didn’t even merit a mention at Fine Gael’s meeting, despite reports that many deputies were very angry that this controversy had blown up in the first place.

Marking time

What to do? On Wednesday, there was a real sense of a parliament marking time until the Fitzgerald crisis is resolved. As night fell, she was making her case to the Seanad, sounding upset as she started with the familiar “no hand, act or part” and then gave a long rundown of her political CV. “That’s my record and I stand over it,” she said, with a mixture of defiance and sadness.

Her Fine Gael Senators rallied around – not to the best effect.

"Anyone who would have the cheek to question her integrity" should be ashamed, said Senator Martin Conway, going right back to Frances's achievements in the 1980s.

His colleague Victor Boyhan declared he fully believed her, not least because he gets so many emails himself that he doesn’t always read them, and he is just a lowly Senator.

"She is a reforming Minister who has done nothing wrong," quivered Jerry Buttimer.

They sorrowfully sounded like they had almost thrown in the towel.

Fitzgerald, her voice suffused with emotion, insisted she has always done her best by McCabe. “The suggestions that I didn’t want the truth to be found – let me be clear, I utterly reject those suggestions.”

What happens now, though, is out of her hands. She appeared despondent.

And now Martin has been given some “space”. To do what?

Maybe to engineer a solution for his own party and for Varadkar too, so that both men can say they had “no hand, act or part” in bringing about an election, or perhaps, the departure of a Minister.

We’ll find out soon enough.