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Poll trolling and Sinn Féin baiting all in a day’s work for Taoiseach

Simon Harris pained by assertions that his budget blowout was something other than a serious, sober annual financial statement with no ulterior motive lurking between the lines

Taoiseach Simon Harris and Fine Gael colleagues at St Stephen's Green, Dublin, the morning after the bonanza before. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Taoiseach Simon Harris and Fine Gael colleagues at St Stephen's Green, Dublin, the morning after the bonanza before. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Miriam Lord's picture
Miriam Lord
Thu Oct 03 2024 - 06:00

The budget is done.

Now Leinster House is counting down the dead air days until Simon Harris ends the misery.

He was out early on Wednesday morning extolling its main selling points to commuters at the St Stephen’s Green Luas stop, shrugging off suggestions that his Government’s exceedingly bounteous budget is a blatant sweetener for the nine-to-fivers whose flesh he was so eagerly pressing the morning after the bonanza before.

“I reckon no matter what we did yesterday, people were going to say it’s a pre-election budget,” sighed the Taoiseach, speaking mid-walkabout from a popular photo-op spot at the top of Grafton Street while holding a stack of promotional leaflets and surrounded by general election candidates staring needily at the cameras.

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He can’t help it if people keep banging on about the impending vote.

“It’s just a statement of fact. It’s a pre-election budget in the sense that it’s the last budget before the general election,” remarked Simon, the last of the big spenders.

Pure poll trolling from the Taoiseach at this stage.

He was pained by assertions that his budget blowout was something other than a serious, sober annual financial statement with no ulterior motive lurking between the lines.

“I reckon the Opposition speeches were written and I reckon the narrative was going to be: ‘This was a giveaway budget’,” he sniffed, as an assortment of ambitious junior Ministers, TDs, Senators and supporters gripped their freshly printed flyers listing all those budget giveaways in glossy bite-size nuggets.

He wouldn’t say whether there would be an election by the end of this year or the start of the next. This was out of deference to his fellow Coalition leaders.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin just can’t be doing with all this palaver over naming the date.

“I don’t understand the frenzy,” he confessed, telling Morning Ireland that he has always been in the February camp.

The Fianna Fáil leader notched up 35 unbroken years of Dáil service in June. He has survived the ups and down of a very turbulent period in his party’s recent history. He knows and has seen how election fever grips the insecure soul and infects the political mind.

And he doesn’t understand it. Yeah, right.

More poll trolling from a veteran campaigner.

On Wednesday evening, the Committee on Social Protection got a letter indicating that the all-important Social Welfare Bill may be ready for consideration on October 16th, six weeks earlier than last year.

The speculation now is that Simon will call the election at the end of October for Friday, November 22nd.

After his stint on the nonelection election canvass, the Taoiseach landed back in the Dáil in time for Leaders’ Questions.

Canvassing must release good endorphins because he was buzzing after his leafleting blitz. Although this may have been in anticipation of his party’s plan to duff up the Shinners by sending in a couple of Fine Gael heavies on Mary Lou McDonald.

Leinster House may now be a dead parrot Dáil with TDs running around the place like headless chickens, but the Taoiseach was going all out to prove otherwise. He got stuck into Leaders’ Questions with gusto, probably because he knew he would be getting stuck into Sinn Féin at some stage in the proceedings.

The party signalled this move clearly by sending in former junior ministers Ciarán Cannon and Colm Brophy to prepare the ground. As the Ceann Comhairle was about to call on Mary Lou (not yet in the chamber), Ciarán interjected with a point of order.

He asked that time be “urgently set aside” so she could make a statement about the Sinn Féin press officer in Northern Ireland who pleaded guilty to child sex abuse offences and “the furnishing of character references for that person by members of Deputy McDonald’s team”.

“Ridiculous,” spluttered Pearse Doherty as the Sinn Féin benches erupted in noisy indignation.

Deputy Cannon stressed that answers were needed, and fast.

The Ceann Comhairle ruled him out of order.

So Colm Brophy stepped in, seeking answers from the Sinn Féin leader who has “a track record of not making statements when they are required” before he was deemed offside.

Mary Lou’s troops were seething.

“Outrageous!” quivered Pearse.

Colm persisted through a chorus of protest. Why can’t Mary Lou give some answers, he asked. She is entitled to make a statement.

The leader of the Opposition isn’t the one who provides the answers during Leaders’ Questions, explained Seán Ó Fearghaíl, to the hearty and relieved approval of the Shinners.

“They might be after the next election, though,” chirruped Tommy Gould.

The Taoiseach bristled.

“It’s no laughing matter,” he told the TD for Kerry, appalled by the quip.

“It’s not a funny issue.”

Just as the Ceann shut down the shouting, Mary Lou, with excellent timing, beetled through the door to her seat.

But she wasn’t going to escape that lightly.

The Sinn Féin leader raised the case of a 13-year-old boy suffering from scoliosis in harrowing detail. His condition is worsening and his mother fears it may soon be too late for surgical intervention. There is an operation available in America.

Don’t insult the boy, or his mother, with “smart alec, slick responses”, she told the Taoiseach.

He did a double-take. “Excuse me?”

“This needs to be sorted out, pronto ... If I were taoiseach, I would sort that out,” lectured Mary Lou.

Simon Harris, a father of two young children, let fly.

“You’ll understand why I’m finding it hard to take a moralistic lecture on child protection from the leader of the Opposition today of all days,” he said to the Ceann, inviting Mary Lou to avail of her right to come into the Dáil and made a statement about the troubling case of her party’s former press officer and how they handled it.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” groaned Pearse Doherty amid more high dudgeon on the SF benches.

“You should apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to everyone else,” fumed Harris to the background sound of multiple scores being settled.

He has a point. If the shoe were on the other foot, Mary Lou and her loudest lieutenants would be bellowing out the demands for a Dáil showdown.

“The reality of the situation here, Deputy McDonald, is that I will work with this family, but I will not have you wrongly represent who I am, my values or the work I do. I will work every day to help every child who needs access.”

Meanwhile, in the Seanad, Mary Seery-Kearney was on message.

The Fine Gael Senator took time out from congratulating the Government on its “exceptional” budget to draw attention to the “shocking” case of the Sinn Féin press officer, describing his former party’s handling of the situation as “a shocking dereliction of child safety”.

There were no Sinn Féin Senators in the chamber at the time to challenge her account.

Perhaps they are waiting for Mary Lou McDonald to clear up the matter.

Or maybe the general election will intervene.

“Bring it on and name the date,” she said.

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