Why can’t deputies be more like Edward Timmins?
Who’s he?
The TD for Wicklow is already the Taoiseach’s best boy in class for this week, even though it’s early days and Edward isn’t even a member of Fianna Fáil.
Edward provided some welcome respite during a tough Dáil session when Micheál Martin was kicked around the chamber by speaker after speaker for not explicitly calling out the US for starting a major war last Saturday.
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Despite coming under heavy Opposition pressure to condemn Donald Trump for riding roughshod over international law when he ordered missile strikes on Iran, the Taoiseach managed to stay on the right side of saying everything apart from openly denouncing the difficult man he is due to visit in the White House in a couple of weeks’ time.
Micheál did this by repeating the phrases “rules-based international order” and “multilateral rules-based order” as many times as possible while criticising some of his critics for their reticence when it came to deploring the actions of other countries guilty of similar breaches and, in some cases, far worse transgressions.
He stressed that he fully respected the rule of international law and would never condone those who would seek to subvert it. However, the vile atrocities committed in recent years by a murderous, despotic regime in Tehran cannot be overlooked.
“I’m a multilateralist,” he told Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. “We believe in a multilateral-based order, but we have to see reality too in terms of the full picture in this regard.”
Unfortunately there is “an absence of an international rules-based order now”, which is why the world has gone mad.
The order is out of order.
In an ideal world, there would be an immediate “de-escalation” in the Middle East (not mentioning any names of who might be able to do this) and a return to the negotiating table.
Nobody was disputing his condemnation of the monstrous regime in Iran. What opposition leaders wanted to know was why he didn’t seem able to condemn the illegal military assault ordered by the US president at weekend.
Not that Micheál approves of this Operation Septic Turkey, or whatever it’s called by whoever launched it.
“There are issues, no questions, in terms of where we are.”
But Mary Lou taking him to task for not condemning this “brazen” breach of international law? He wasn’t going to take that, not when her party voted in the European Parliament against a €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
“I know Sinn Féin doesn’t support Ukraine,” he declared, provoking epic fury from the Shinners.
Had Europe denied Ukraine, a country illegally invaded by Russia, it would be tantamount to telling its people “to surrender now to the Russians” and Vladimir Putin would be the happiest man in the world, he said.
Then he fanned their epic fury (conveniently distracting himself from having to condemn the father of Operation Septic Turkey) by dragging in the Trump’s political home guard, the Maga movement.
Sinn Féin’s organisation in the US supported Maga Republican politicians over the decades through “financial donations”, he cheerfully announced to Mary Lou’s apoplectic troops.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik wasn’t so easily deflected, with Micheál acknowledging that her party had always spoken out about repressive and violent regimes.
Ivana knew what the Taoiseach was at. (As did all TDs in the Dáil, as the St Patrick’s Day trip to Washington loomed.)
With two weeks to go to the annual shamrock ceremony in the White House, she correctly surmised that Micheál wasn’t going to say anything to upset Trump before their meeting in the Oval Office.
It must have stung when she reminded him that the prime minister of Spain had taken the US commander in chief to task for breaking international law.
So Micheál is skirting around the subject of Trump’s illegal military assault, Ivana tartly concluded, before heading off shortly to “genuflect before the man responsible” and “engage in Plastic Paddy pageantry”.
Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats wondered if the Government now believed that large countries could simply ignore international law. “It doesn’t just apply to countries that we agree with.”
While Trump’s war was spreading in the Middle East, anybody listening to the Taoiseach talk about it “wouldn’t even know that the US is involved”, she said.
Of course, it’s easy for the other leaders to say this. They’re not heading Stateside at the end of next week.
Two hours into Tuesday’s sitting, when almost every question he was asked was to do with the war, the Taoiseach finally hit the nail on the head after Paul Murphy of Solidarity-People Before Profit had a go.
“War is a terrible thing,” he sighed.
Well, yes.
Couldn’t argue with him there. And when he is in Washington, he will be able to say that to Trump, who is unlikely to disagree.
And so to Fine Gael TD Edward Timmins. He spoke during the Order of Business in the Dáil and didn’t mention the war.
“Taoiseach, I wish to raise the issue of spending control, cost control and improved outputs in various departments. This issue doesn’t get enough of a hearing in this chamber,” Edward said as the Taoiseach perked up.
“We should not assume spending increases should automatically match economic growth. Often when you spend more, you feed inefficiencies,” he continued by way of improved outputs and justifiable spending.
Edward even had a question.
“Our taxpayers fund this spending; who is speaking up for the taxpayer?”
Micheál turned around to face his Coalition backbencher, beaming.
“Deputy, if there was a medal to be awarded for the best contributor of the week, you would be most deserving of it because you are a lone voice among many voices whose only inclination and focus is on spending more money, calling on Government to keep on spending more money and spend as much as we can.
“You’re the first person in a long time who has stood up and said that public expenditure in and of itself is not something that we should just knee-jerk or automatically applaud.”
Edward completely agreed with himself.
“It feeds inefficiencies” he chimed-in, prompting Micheál to wax lyrical on outputs, outcomes, value for money and how great it is to listen to somebody in the chamber supporting the taxpayer.
“So I salute that and it’s an awful pity the Minister for Public Expenditure didn’t hear you because he would feel a bit less lonely in the overall scheme of things than he currently does in terms keeping a rein on public expenditure.
“I agree with you, like, that capital expenditure is an investment in the productive capacity of our economy...”
Oh, but he could have talked all day about it.
Without once having to think about avoiding any mention of the warmonger Trump and his septic turkey.
