Gavan Reilly: My reflections on the carnage and chaos in the environs of Leinster House

‘Tis the season not just for reflection, but for being self-centered, so permit me a moment to reflect on two days of carnage and chaos in the environs of Leinster House.

The first was on that day in January, Micheál Martin’s family traipsed up to Leinster House and watched agog from the distinguished visitors gallery, as opposition parties engaged in a conscious attempt to frustrate his appointment as Taoiseach.

This was, we were told, a subversion of democracy. I’m more inclined to think it was the exhibition of democracy, and the right of people to raise grievances through the mandate they’ve been given, albeit in an overdramatic way.

But what I most vividly remember from that day, is the objectively shambolic handling of a press conference that evening. Once business had been abandoned for the day, without a Taoiseach or Government being formed, Micheál Martin and Simon Harris wanted to convene the media to kick up a stink about the behaviour of the opposition.

Their first chosen venue, the plinth outside Leinster House, was blocked by the ushers because they considered the complaint to be a governmental matter and not a parliamentary one.

Even senior civil servants in the Oireachtas were baffled at that one: the failure of the Dáil to perform a constitutional duty was surely a parliamentary problem, but the powers-that-be wouldn’t let a serving member of government convene the press in any event.

Their second chosen venue, outside the gates on Merrion Square, was also ruled out, even though the entire street had been fenced off for the day, in case of lightning protests.

Reporters were then sent up to the outside of Government Buildings, where the principals arrived late – almost too late to be included in the evening TV news bulletins, which was surely the goal of the exercise – and then cribbed and moaned about other people refusing to play nicely on their big day, sulkily to accept any bona fides from the other side. The annoyance about the tactics was legitimate, but the two government leaders were oddly detached from the substance of the row: the two establishment parties simply didn’t realise that hatching a deal with Michael Lowry – condemned by Tribunals, convicted by courts – to give him the privileges of both opposition and government, was a bad look.

Both leaders had spoken loftily in the past about the need for politics to be above reproach.

Either could have said that independent TDs were entitled to band together, but that the blemishes in Lowry’s past meant he could not act as their intermediary in talks.

Instead: no, it was the opposition who were wrong, whose actions were marginally unacceptable and so whose motivations must have been subversive.

Not alone was it a startlingly unprofessional attempt from leaders of government to communicate a message to the public, it was a sullen and headstrong analysis, at odds with the broader public’s view. The coalition-in-waiting saw it as a coronation denied; the public saw it as a tantrum. Only two months removed from the election, the country’s leaders had already fallen out of touch.

At the other end of the year, we had the calamitous handling of Jim Gavin’s presidential candidacy, and an equally shambolic unveiling. The Plinth wasn’t an option – Gavin is not a sitting member of the Oireachtas, so can’t avail of the facility – but Leinster House shouldn’t have been the venue in any case. This is the formal unveiling of someone who aspires to be head of state: maybe rent a hotel function room for a couple of hours?

Another higgledy-piggeldy arrangement resulted in journalists cramming into a pavement, and spilling out onto the street, outside the gates at Merrion Square. The candidate started out assertive – welcoming journalists to the event himself, and declaring his joy at winning the Fianna Fáil vote – but immediately shed his fluency once it came to questions. The questioning ended after six minutes with plenty of disappointed voices.

That afternoon, in the less hectic surrounds of Merrion Square itself, the candidate did a few extended one-on-one broadcast interviews. Earlier, Gavin said he’d voted in favour of marriage equality and on repealing the 8th Amendment. How, as a prospective national thought leader, had he voted in the two referendums last year?

Um… ah…

It wasn’t just that Gavin didn’t have the words for his answers, he didn’t have the answers at all. He couldn’t remember what referendums had taken place. He needed reminding before offering an unconvincing No to both the role of women, and the definition of the family. Unconvincing answers were to become a trait, if only Fianna Fáil could have seen that coming.

Last week I wrote about the do-nothing Dáil of 2025. One correction is due: the total number of Acts passed this year is not 20, it’s 21. The overall point remains: it’s the fewest bills enacted into law since 1922, when the Dáil’s Christmas recess arrived only two weeks after the State came into existence.

Some people in government have tried to contextualise this: the first year of a new government is always a bit of a go-slow; the number of bills is comparable to 2016 or 2020 (minus the emergency laws needed for Covid), so there’s nothing unique to this Dáil.

There is, though. In 2016 the government only took office in May, ten weeks after the election. In 2020, the appointment wasn’t until the end of June, with the pandemic stalling any meaningful attempt at negotiating a coalition. In 2025 the outgoing government retook office in January and inherited almost all of the same agenda. The only delay in legislating was the aforementioned speaking rights row, a fight the government itself chose to pick.

If you feel underwhelmed by it all, you wouldn’t be alone. It’s all, objectively, a bit ‘meh’. Even contentious announcements – like the reform to rental laws, ostensibly trying to encourage more building, at the consequence of punishing short-term tenants like students – haven’t actually been legislated for. This is a microcosm for everything: things get said, and we live with the consequences of the promise, but never the upsides of a solution.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on these pages in 2025; I hope readers get some rest over the break, and come back reinvigorated in 2026.

I hope the government does so too.