2 days Ago By Una Mullally
It’s clear that this does not matter to the Government, but the political careers of Verona Murphy and Michael Lowry might have been dead in the water long before either politician found themselves embroiled in this shambles. While both arefairly and democratically elected by their constituents, why elevate them? Lowry’s scandals are well-documented : the Moriarty tribunal, the McCracken tribunal, tax evasion, his resignation from Fine Gael. This is who this Government decided to throw its lot in with.
Make of that what you will. But what about Murphy’s controversy? During the 2019 Wexford by-election, when she was running as a Fine Gael candidate, she caused chaos for the party. She invoked a conspiracy theory that immigrants coming to Ireland were “infiltrated by Isis”, or the Islamic State, and said that Isis was a “big part” of the immigrant population in Ireland .
When this generated inevitable and fair criticism, Murphy took to YouTube, posting a video claiming she was a victim of character assassination by media to the soundtrack of Eye of the Tiger. She ultimately apologised, saying she “had a poor understanding of asylum issues”. Her remarks came a couple of months after another incident with an Irish politician running their mouth about asylum seekers.
When Independent Noel Grealish was speaking at a public meeting in Oughterard, Co Galway, about local resistance to asylum seeker accommodation in the town, he was recorded as saying: “These are people that are coming over here from Africa ...
to sponge off the system here in Ireland.” This Government made Grealish a super junior minister with a seat at Cabinet, despite the constitutional limitation of Government members to 15 including the taoiseach. It wasn’t just the media and opposition politicians who called Murphy out in 2019.
It was also Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil politicians, including then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Varadkar said he was glad Murphy wasn’t elected and that it was a mistake to select her in the first place, something he took personal responsibility for. So who is responsible now for allowing her to be elevated to the highest-paid position in the Dáil? If standards of personnel aren’t sufficient, then there are standards of process and procedure.
While the deal the Government struck with Independents saw Murphy appointed Ceann Comhairle, and four other Independents made junior ministers, the speaking rights issue was originally caused by the others who wanted technical group status (something Murphy ruled would not be allowed back in January). This is about principle and precedent. Let’s say Sinn Féin were in Government and wanted a handful of independents who supported their Coalition to have opposition speaking time.
Does anyone really believe Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in opposition would support that? Of course they wouldn’t – and rightly. They’d talk about Sinn Féin breaking rules, subverting process, and even undermining democracy. They’d rail against it.
They’d be in front of every microphone in the land saying: we told you this crowd couldn’t be trusted. Are opposition politicians overdoing it now? Is there excessive hyperbole on their end? Probably. But that’s politics.
The issue still stands. The opposition is right to contest what is happening, and if Government keeps doubling down, and keeps pushing motions through, discontent will continue to descend into chaos. While Government politicians are consistent in their framing of these scenes as Sinn Féin-authored disruption, then what of the Labour Party , the Social Democrats , People Before Profit , and other independents? Is the public meant to believe that such a diverse group is suddenly doing Sinn Féin’s bidding? All of this breeds cynicism; cynical actions beget cynical responses.
The rotten pinnacle of this chaos (so far) was Lowry’s disgraceful “eff you” gesture, a scene of appalling immaturity that was compounded by the embarrassing sight of the young TD, Barry Heneghan , next to him, adopting the jocular wingman stance of the lesser lad laughing along with the boldest boy in the classroom. The one good thing that could come from this is that the opposition appears largely united. While it shouldn’t take a bumbling government to generate cross-party unity, particularly when it comes to presenting to the electorate a viable alternative coalition government – something they did not manage to achieve, to their detriment, before the most recent election – it does feel as though a new unity is being generated.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have long framed a potential alternative coalition government as unworkable and chaotic. Well, is this what order looks like? If the vox pops and public chatter last week are anything to go by, while Lowry might have two fingers for everyone, the public has four words for the Government: get your act together..
