In case we had forgotten, Holly Cairns arrived into the Dáil with the most heartening of news.
“Today marks the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration,” announced the leader of the Social Democrats. “So we have three years left to go.”
She could have said: “I’ll leave that with you” and stopped for a dramatic pause – the Dáil equivalent of a mic-drop moment.
But Holly kept going, because it was the kindest thing to do.
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Leaving extra time for such an unpalatable gobbet of information to sink in would have been cruel.
Only a year, you say?
Three more to go?
For God’s sake, Holly, don’t be reminding us.
Unfortunately, for those who didn’t catch it, Ol’ Fanta Face obliged a few hours later with a press conference to mark his tremendous first year of domestic and diplomatic deviancy and showcase the “365 wins in 365 days” living in his head.
Oh, but it would take him “a week” to read out all he has achieved.
With three more years of unhinged greatness to go.
Back in Leinster House, before this latest Washington performance, the American president’s increasingly disturbing behaviour dominated Leaders’ Questions.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald was the only one who didn’t raise the issue on Tuesday – either during the opening set-piece or during policy questions which followed.
Labour’s Ivana Bacik kicked off the Trump-themed session, calling on Taoiseach Micheál Martin to stand up to his “tantrums” with “real action and robust responses”.
The man is trying to “blackmail” Europe with his threats, said Ivana.
With his territory grabs and tariffs, an economic “Trump slump” looming and “dysfunction in DC wreaking havoc across the world”, she told Micheál the time has come for Europe “to stand up to what is really a sort of creeping fascism”.
It’s not good.
What could the Taoiseach say, apart from the obvious?
“Could I say at the outset that we are in very uncharted territory, and the situation is serious and potentially very grave for the European economy, for the Irish economy, indeed, United States economy, if a trade war was to break out.”
Holly Cairns began by noting Trump’s first anniversary.
She didn’t wish him a happy one.
With the unimaginable prospect of three more of them to go, she wondered whether EU leaders are going to be able to spend the rest of that time trying to keep him happy, as all the evidence so far shows the strategy isn’t working.
“For 12 months, leaders in Europe have fallen over Trump – no matter what outrage, insult or international incident Trump provoked,” she pointed out.
“Now we see where it has gotten us. Trump demanding the United States acquires Greenland and refusing to rule out using military force to do so.”
When Holly said “we are through the looking glass” with the Trump administration, the Taoiseach didn’t quibble.
Where exactly is through the looking glass?
“It is very uncharted territory – no question about that.”
An understandably wary Micheál isn’t about to go jumping into it.
The jobs and livelihoods of thousands of people in Ireland who work for US companies located in the country – he said his primary intention is to protect them.
However, he said, Ireland will stand with its European partners and “a principled approach to international relations”.
Holly said she recognises the difficulty of the situation facing political leaders. They are dealing with threats nobody would have imagined until recently. “They are now a grim reality.”
The Taoiseach was downbeat about “the profound shifts” happening.
“The world is in a very, very bad place.”
He looked on glumly as the Social Democrat leader told him that the strategy of appeasing somebody like Trump has not worked. “His belligerence and erratic behaviour is escalating.”
Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit has had enough of this soft soaping of “the chaos merchant in the Oval Office” – as Deputy Cairns dubbed him.
“Will you and your European colleagues stop soft-pedalling, or worse, bending the knee before Donald Trump, and finally admit what everybody can see: a bully,” he beseeched the Taoiseach.
“He’s an imperialist and he is a threat to the world and to humanity, and that it is time to stand up to this bully and call him out for what he is.”
RBB, arms waving, worked up a head of steam as went over just some of the “highlights” of Trumps year of misrule.
And then, if he couldn’t be more confounded by Trump’s uncontrolled rule-breaking, there was one last abomination: “Just to add to it all, his pal is Elon Musk, who profits from selling child-abuse material and misogynistic material on the internet. The disgusting list goes on.”
He added to the calls on Micheál to stand up to the bully.
“You’re not seriously going to go the White House with shamrock this year and celebrate our national day with them?”
The Taoiseach wasn’t getting into that. In Trump time, March is still a long way away. As his unmoored meanderings at Tuesday night’s press conference demonstrates, Trump has no concept of time.
It’s frightening.
Micheál is in Davos this week, though.
Perhaps he will be able to grab a minute with the US president and ask him to tell his pal Elon to instruct his minions in X to attend the Dáil media committee’s upcoming meeting on AI.
The committee chairman, Labour’s Alan Kelly, revealed during Taoiseach’s questions that Google, Meta and TikTok will attend – but representatives of Musk’s platform are dragging their heels.
“Will you help me as chair of the media committee by asking X to turn up at our meeting?” Could Micheál say to them that it is “imperative” that they attend and engage honestly with the people of Ireland?
Micheál was happy to help. He will “communicate with X and ask that they turn up”.
That should put the wind up them.
He could ask Donald in Davos too.
Flattery will get him nowhere.
