When the Jim Gavin project exploded after launch, one question was repeatedly asked of the senior people in Fianna Fáil sent out to bat in the mortifying aftermath.
Who set the ball rolling?
Whose idea was it?
Who suggested that the much garlanded former GAA manager was the man to finally restore the pride and presidency of Fianna Fáil?
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Taoiseach Micheál Martin or Jim Gavin?
It was hardly the football strategist and former Air Corps pilot, who said and did so little during his brief candidature to suggest he had the Right Stuff to win a presidential election?
Nobody seemed to know the answer.
When the ill-fated enterprise crashed and burned, quiet man Gavin melted back from whence he had come while his erstwhile Fianna Fáil sponsors went into meltdown.
The party’s keenly anticipated review into the Fianna Fáil fiasco landed on Tuesday.
There was no “smoking gun”, pronounced the people who have to read these reports the minute they come out and tell the rest of us the upshot.
But there was a Top Gun.
And to the deep disappointment of the Taoiseach and his fluent apologists, it was the former pilot and unfortunately forgetful Jim Gavin. He was asked five times, they stressed, if there was any outstanding issue in his recent past to do with a former tenant and he said there was none.
It pained them to point this out, but they can’t be blamed when he said nothing.
Easing back on the contrition and their own inept handling of the campaign, they bundled Jim ever so tenderly under the bus.
We must remember, said concerned apologists for Micheál Martin, that at the heart of this is a man with a wife and family. Jim maintains his dignified silence and they won’t be rubbing it in.
And yet...
Whatever about Fianna Fáil’s train-wreck campaign, it is also difficult to feel any sympathy for him either.
If what is contained in the report is true, Jim Gavin wanted this job and he pitched for it as far back as June.
On June 9th, his old friend and fellow Dublin team-mate Keith Barr approached the deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, Jack Chambers, suggesting Jim would make a good president.
Six days later, the man himself texted Jack “seeking to follow up on the initial contact”.
So it seems Micheál didn’t come looking for Jim: it was Jim who came looking for Micheál.
And matters went on from there with meetings taking place over the summer.
On August 1st, Jim confirmed to the party’s general secretary that he wanted to put his name forward.
Another month passed before the candidate officially entered the fray, when he wrote to the parliamentary party to seek their support.
“Over the last two months, members of the party and the parliamentary party have approached me to ask if I would be willing to put my name forward. I was very honoured to have been approached.”
But not, according to the report, before he approached the party himself in early June after Keith Barr helpfully sounded out Jack.
“Since then, I have engaged in thoughtful conversations with people both in the party and in the wider community.”
Micheál was gung-ho for him from the get-go.
He said he didn’t hold out much hope for the chances of the wily Billy Kelleher, who decided to make a contest of it by challenging his anointed candidate.
On the day Jim went public, the Taoiseach advised journalists at an event in Kerry to treat with great caution reports that Billy had the support of 30 colleagues.
He got a bit of a land when the Cork-based MEP got 29 votes despite the leadership lobbying heavily for his opponent.
But back to Jim.
It’s not like he was bounced into this calamity, or anything.
None of them come out well from it.
Offer of parting gift adds insult to injury as Ireland is shafted at EU fish quotas negotiations
The Irish fishing industry is in shock following the outcome of last weekend’s marathon European Union quota negotiations at the Agri Fish Council in Brussels.
Discussions went on long into the night as EU fisheries ministers tried to hammer out a deal. But despite strong protests from Ireland and other small fishing nations, a decision was railroaded through by a power bloc of four larger member states which will see a major reduction in Irish fish quotas.
Timmy Dooley, Minister of State with responsibility for fisheries, denounced the “predatory” move by France, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands as “a fundamental act of betrayal” and told the meeting it was “particularly upsetting that the charge had been led by those that benefited most from the access to Irish waters every year since ‘83”.
Timmy, who headed the Irish delegation, was fuming. As the meeting broke up, EU ministers and their teams of advisers milled about, making the usual small talk as they prepared to leave.
One onlooker observed Catherine Chabaud, the French minister for the sea and fishery, approaching her Irish counterpart with a smile on her face and a gift bag in her hand.
“Timmy!” she cried, offering him a bottle of French wine as a gift.
“No thank you,” he said politely. “No thank you. It’s not appropriate.”
She was most taken aback. As were some others in the room who saw the scene unfold.
Mme Chabaud persisted. Non? He is not going to accept her gift?
Timmy declined again, repeating that it would not be appropriate.
After the French led the charge to shaft fishing families in Ireland’s vulnerable coastal communities, no amount of Gallic charm was going to soften the blow.
Industry leaders say the quota cuts – coupled with the established protection measures for Ireland swept away by this “blocking minority”, will be disastrous for the industry with more than 2,000 jobs now at risk.
How would it have looked if Timmy had walked away from those negotiations with a nice little present from the French under his oxter?
He might have ended up in a different type of deep water when he got home to Clare.
Michael Healy-Rae enjoys good hair day thanks to Boxer’s wig
The Regional Independents held their last meeting before the Christmas break on Wednesday. There was a festive, giddy air to proceedings.
This might have been because Michael Healy-Rae was wearing a wig.
It was at the insistence of his fellow Minister of State, Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran.
But why?
“I’d be asking him all the time: What were you like with hair? You’d love to know,” said Boxer after the photos surfaced on Thursday.
He’s been browbeating Michael for months now.
“I said to him: “If I bring a wig up to the Dáil you have to wear it” and he kept saying “No, no, no!” I wanted him to do it on Halloween night so we could put him out on the street to scare people. But he wouldn’t.”
But he finally prevailed this week.
“When he came in with it under the cap, I called him Richie Kavanagh. He’s the spit of Richie Kavanagh.”
It was a big day for the OPW minister as his wife Michelle, son Jamie and his fiance Ali visited Leinster House with his first grandchild, seven-months-old Tilly.
“They were in the canteen and the wife said: “Will you bring Tilly up to the office? So I brought her across to the chamber for Leaders’ Questions. She sat on my lap and was as good as gold.
“Everybody took to her because she is full of smiles. John McGuinness was sounding off in the chair and didn’t Tilly look over and take a fit of laughing. People started looking around to see where the baby was and then somebody said ‘Boxer’s babysitting today’.”
He wore a musical Christmas tie in case Tilly needed a blast of Jingle Bells to stay awake during Taoiseach’s Questions.
Online trolls meet their match in Jennifer Whitmore
Wicklow TD Jennifer Whitmore is no stranger to people – men, usually – slinging derogatory insults at her on social media. They think it’s fun to make personal comments about her for all to see.
She doesn’t always let them away with it.
This week, she spoke in the Dáil in favour of a Bill to outlaw fox hunting. She posted video of her comments during the debate on her Facebook page. It was captioned “fox hunting needs to be banned”.
A man posted back: “And you need to stay away from the fridge door.”
Jennifer did a little sleuthing and quickly found out who he is and where he was located.
She phoned him up from her kitchen. And filmed it.
In a very pleasant tone of voice, she asks about his business and then asked if he is also a nutritionist. “Do you also give heath advice?”
He quickly hangs up. When Jennifer rings back, the call goes to voicemail so she leaves a message.
“You came on to my Facebook page last night and you commented about my weight. I’m just wondering why you thought you should be able to do that, whether or not you had any qualifications on it?”
She added: “I also just want to say it is really not cool to do that. So I would ask that the next time you have the urge to troll, please think twice, think about being kind.”
The Social Democrats TD for Wicklow has had a huge response to her video.
“I just saw the remark and it was a case of: here we go again.
“Then I thought, if he thinks he can come on to my Facebook page and publicly be rude to me, I’ll just ring him and have a chat, one to one.”
Jennifer says she had called up trolls before, but never caught it on video.
“Sometimes, if people are insulting me on social media, I will go back to them. It depends on how I’m feeling.
“Sometimes you just don’t want to be dealing with it and sometimes I’ll go back and I’ll just say to them – do you know it’s not OK to say things like that to people? You don’t have to agree with my position, but don’t be mean.”
A surprisingly large number of people have messaged her privately to apologise.
Deputy Whitmore feels people have to be reminded that they are on a public forum. One of the reasons she confronts these trolls is because their comments are frequently directed at undermining young women, who don’t tend to fight back.
“Being mean to people has become really normal, and it shouldn’t.”
Barry Heneghan ends annus mirabilis with a bang
It was a dizzying start to the year for political novice Barry Heneghan.
And it’s been a dizzying end to the year for him too. But not in the way he would have wanted.
Having pulled off an unexpected win in Dublin Bay North by recapturing the independent seat once held by his mentor Finian McGrath, the 26-year-old from Clontarf made an explosive entry to national politics.
Back in January, Barry found himself right in the thick of things after his decision to support the Government as part of the Michael Lowry led Regional Independents Group. With his forthright manner and jaunty inability to pass a live microphone, he gained an unlikely national prominence within weeks.
With the passing of time, Deputy Heneghan has eased back on the exuberance.
Clearly, he’s been learning the ropes and is now more cautious in his dealings with the media and more measured in his pronouncements.
His dizzying end to 2025 had nothing to do with politics: he got clattered during a rugby match last Saturday and was taken off the field with suspected concussion.
“Just like my politics, I went head on.”
Deputy Heneghan was in the back row for Clontarf last Saturday against Barnhall in Kildare when the collision occurred.
“I was very dizzy afterwards and couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, really. They are very particular about these things in rugby, and rightly so. I had to go off.”
His face took a bit of a battering too but after resting up he was checked over and given the all clear to return to the office in Leinster House for the last Dáil week of the year.
Unfortunately, Barry couldn’t attend the Regional Independent Group’s final meeting before the break on Wednesday after getting the sad news of the death of his granny, Patty Heneghan, from Shrule in Mayo.
A great woman by all accounts.
