Gavan Reilly: No honeymoon for the new man jetting off

You know when you’re watching the news, and you see a clip of Dáil exchanges, where the Taoiseach is flanked by a clutch of ministers, and opposition leaders are surrounded by allies of their own? The vast majority of those are there for nothing but show: the speaking order is set in advance, and a TD without a speaking slot is loitering in front of cameras instead of making calls or responding to queries.

That’s especially true of ministers, whose work is primarily done in their departments. A regular Dáil week has 27 hours and the Taoiseach is around to answer questions for four of them: the rest of the time is in meetings, and often abroad. International engagement is a core part of the Taoiseach’s job.

All of which is to say, it was cynical of opposition TDs to put the boot in last week when Harris was making calls to London, Belfast and Kyiv, and preparing for a whistlestop tour of Brussels and Warsaw. That outward focus is part of the job – and what’s more, the draft schedule circulated days beforehand, made clear that Harris would not be around.

But: while the playacting about Harris ‘dodging’ the Dáil was silly, the grievance about the new Taoiseach prioritising other work was fair. Including this week, there are only 24 Dáil sitting weeks before Christmas. That’s limited scope for Harris to move the needle on his political priorities, and precious little time for opposition parties to do their genuine job of holding him accountable on them. There’s more foreign travel this week when the Taoiseach attends an EU summit, the last one before the European elections. That was always set in stone and immovable from his diary. When he was going to be gone this week, he should have stayed around last week to set the right first impression.