“I’m not going anywhere.”
Fighting talk from Micheál Martin in an interview last week amid dark rumblings in the ranks over his handling of the presidential election debacle.
The Dáil resumed on Tuesday after the Halloween break.
Micheál was on a plane to Brazil.
Which was a stroke of luck.
He will be gone for some time.
While the Taoiseach was polishing his maracas on the way to discovering his inner Barry Manilow, he left his loyal sidekick and co-custodian of the election fiasco, Jack Chambers, to hold the fort back in Dublin.
So it’ll be Chambers of Commerce, the Minister for Public Expenditure, doing Leaders’ Questions this week. It’s a change from the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, who has been the recent stand-in of choice.
But Big Jim is being touted within and without Fianna Fáil as the person best positioned to replace Micheál as party leader, and even Taoiseach. So there’s no point in giving him any more exposure than he already has.
Catherine Connolly ceased to be a TD after she won last month's presidential election. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Micheál wasn’t the only one missing.
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