Gavan Reilly: The little spotted micro-row that points to ructions in 2024

Another year over. In truth, though there’s been plenty going on domestically, politics has been in a bit of suspended animation for a while. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (and the Greens! Don’t forget the Greens!) have been putting on a good show of unity - especially when it came to the Dáil debate defending Helen McEntee a few weeks ago. The closest we came to a full Cabinet row were the debates on facial recognition technology, in which the Greens eventually secured agreement to a more studious approach to legislation, and the cabinet row over the housing of Ukrainians. Then again, the latter merely amounted to a reverse tug-of-war between two government departments over who would carry the true burden of providing accommodation.

But over the last few days, however, there’s an obvious sign of fragility emerging. The prospect of elections - whenever they may be - certainly appears to be sharpening minds. Helen McEntee herself was a close spectator to the latest round of it.

Let me explain. One of McEntee’s less glamorous, but more significant projects, is the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill. It involves a reform of the Garda Ombudsman Commission and the abolition of council-level ‘joint policing committees’ with new local security forums. The latter has turned out to be a particularly sore point with some members of the Seanad. Why the Seanad, and not the Dáil? Because unlike TDs, who are elected by all adult citizens, 85% of the electorate for most Seanad seats are county and city councillors - the people who sit on the current Joint Policing Committees.

This Bill was before Senators last Wednesday. In the ordinary course of things, in the final days before the Christmas recess, the Bill would be ‘guillotined’ - a procedure where debate ends at a fixed time, no matter how much or little progress has been made, with a final vote held immediately. The guillotine is often used in the final week before a recess, where ministers try to shove through various laws ahead of a sustained break. This Bill had already been through the Dáil and so the final rubberstamp from Senators was the only thing standing in the way of the President’s desk.

Expecting this to be the case, some Fianna Fáil senators tabled some amendments which would guarantee the prominence of councillors on these new security forums - a symbolic act which would have no practical effect given the guillotine would fall on the debate before the amendments would actually be voted on. Everyone wins: the Bill passes, but the FF crowd can legitimately tell their party colleagues on the ground that they did their best to safeguard the role of local authority members in the supervision of community policing.

Except that’s not what happened. For reasons your columnist hasn’t quite been able to establish, the decision was made on Wednesday not to guillotine the Bill. Suddenly the FF senators were in trouble: when their amendments hadn’t been pre-approved by Cabinet, McEntee would be forced to reject them – and so the FF troupe would be forced into either an embarrassing climbdown, or vote en masse against their minister’s direction.

But Senators are nothing if not keen on their own procedures. While general debates on legislation are tightly controlled with specified time slots, the nitty-gritty stuff of potential amendments have no such constraints. And so, for the first time in a few years, we had a filibuster: Fianna Fáil senators talking in circles about various ‘concerns’ in the bill (‘Will the reports of the new ombudsman be published in the Irish language?’ ‘Can we stipulate whether hard copies will be circulated for older citizens who can’t find the PDF online?’) in a desperate attempt to stall the debate – and any eventual votes – for as long as possible.

Yes, this meant that for several hours last Wednesday, not alone were Fianna Fáil senators trying to stall their own government’s landmark legislation, they were even trying to avoid a vote being held on their own proposals.

Let’s face it: you don’t often hear or read much about what’s going on in the Seanad. For most of us in Leinster House – and this includes many of its own members – the Seanad is not the top priority. Many of those in the upper house are either aspiring TDs, or semi-retired ones, each hoping to be elected to the bigger chamber with better exposure and greater influence.

But the very reason I’m sharing this little anecdote with you, dear Chronicle reader, is because the group most aggrieved with the Fianna Fáil filibuster (Fiannabuster?) was not the group in opposition who wanted a more constructive use of their limited time… it was their colleagues in Fine Gael. The Cathaoirleach, Jerry Buttimer, was blue in the face asking senators to stick to the matter at hand instead of continually venturing off-topic. Mary Seery Kearney said the debate was being “deliberately obstructed”. John McGahon described the obfuscation as being “so well choreographed that it is like watching Swan Lake”. McEntee gamely offered to continue proceedings until midnight if that’s what was needed. All of it in vain.

If that’s what the mood is like when a general election is still over the horizon, imagine how tetchy they’ll all be when the posters are up the lamposts. And all of this, when polling could still be over a year away… and that’s without factoring in the local elections, the European election, at least three referendums, the first election on the Limerick mayoralty, and much more – all of it where FF and FG might well be the ones in competition for final seats.

Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas everyone – better rest up…

- Gavan Reilly is Political Correspondent with Virgin Media News and Political Columnist for the Meath Chronicle - Column first appeared in last Tuesday's paper.