New Irish Leader Goes From Crisis to Crisis as Covid Spreads

(Bloomberg) -- Micheal Martin’s dream job as Ireland’s prime minister is in danger of turning into a nightmare.

Since the 60-year old took over from Leo Varadkar in late June, he’s lost one minister to a drink-driving offense and seen another minister and Ireland’s EU Commissioner both quit after breaching restrictions to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Most damagingly, he’s lost control of the pandemic, with new cases this week hitting the highest level since May. Parliament has now been recalled early from its summer break to discuss the unfolding events.

“It’s hard to think of any government which has had a worse start,” Diarmaid Ferriter, professor of history at University College Dublin, said. “Martin has had to deal with a unique set of circumstances -- pandemic, the first three-party government in 20 years and a weak and divided party.”

Economically, the turmoil is complicating Ireland’s efforts to tackle the worst crisis since the nation sought a bailout a decade ago. Politically, it may stoke the rise of left-wing group Sinn Fein, which won the popular vote in February’s election, but was frozen out of coalition talks. And for Martin, it puts his legacy at risk already after a lifetime seeking the top job in Irish politics.

“We’re already hankering for Leo,” former government adviser Fergus Finlay wrote this week, capturing the mood of voters watching Martin’s government stumble between crises in contrast to Varadkar’s perceived steady leadership at the start of the pandemic.

Now the former Taoiseach looms in the background as deputy prime minister, occasionally questioning Martin’s handling of events in public. Under the terms of the coalition deal, Varadkar is due to take over as premier at the end of 2022.

“You have two parties of the same size competing as well as governing together,” said Eoin O’Malley, a politics professor at Dublin City University.

Martin was destabilized almost as soon as he took office. Less than a month after taking the helm, he had to fire his agriculture minister, Barry Cowen, after it emerged he’d been caught drink driving more than three years ago.

Worse was to follow. While Varadkar had brought forward plans to reopen the economy, virus cases start to spike on Martin’s watch.

When the former health minister took over, Ireland had less than three cases per 100,000 of population, well below Italy, Germany, Sweden and the U.K. Now that’s been reversed. At the end of August, Ireland had 30.6 cases per 100,000 people, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

The government is working on “a new approach in terms of managing Covid-19 right through this year and beyond,” Martin told reporters on Thursday. That plan should be ready by mid-September, he added.

Martin responded to rising case numbers by announcing new restrictions on Aug. 18, which included limiting indoor gatherings to six people. Yet a day later, his new agriculture minister, Dara Calleary, and EU Commissioner Phil Hogan attended a dinner organized by parliament’s golf society for over 80 people. The minister resigned, followed by Hogan, costing Ireland the influential trade portfolio in Brussels.

Even before that, support for Martin’s Fianna Fail had plunged. Backing for the party stood at 12%, according to a July poll. That suggests the next election, whenever it comes, will be a fight between Varadkar’s Fine Gael and Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA.

There’s no sign Martin’s government is in imminent danger for now, but it’s already drawing comparisons with the short-lived 1981 administration led by Garret Fitzgerald.

“It was a disaster almost from day one,” O’Malley said, citing similarities, such as annoyance over cabinet appointments, a fiscal crisis, poor relations between prime minister and his deputy, inexperienced ministers, and no majority. “It collapsed soon after it started.”

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