Taoiseach brought back down to earth after walking on air in Glasgow

Apparently the Taoiseach went overboard on the haggis in Glasgow.

“The biggest issue facing us is wind,” he warned solemnly.

But the chamber doors are kept open these days for ventilation purposes, so no harm done.

Micheál Martin was back for Leaders’ Questions after his big trip to Scotland, where he hobnobbed with world leaders and global billionaires. After one of the Cop26 sessions Joe Biden, no less, came looking for a chinwag.

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“He called me over,” confided Micheál on Wednesday and “reiterated to me in the strongest possible terms how the Good Friday agreement matters very deeply” to him and his administration and how “he had made this unequivocally clear to the British government”.

Róisín Shortall, co-leader of the Social Democrats, got under his skin

The US president and Micheál met on the margins on Monday. Then Joe fell asleep in the conference hall.

Having rubbed shoulders with political and business giants at the start of the week the Taoiseach suffered the indignity of a return to Dublin to face the usual wretched cast of thankless minnows in the Dáil. No wonder he was a bit tetchy.

He nearly bit the head off socialist Mick Barry, who interrupted his dissertation on the nature of emissions. “And methane emanates, as we know, from a range of human activities, including oil and gas extraction, which we have taken steps in this House to limit . . .”

“Bizarre,” harrumphed Mick.

“Deputy Barry, it’s not your turn,” snapped the Taoiseach, mid-sentence.

Mick shut up sharpish, because it’s not like Micheál to be so venomous. Eyebrows raised all round.

Róisín Shortall, co-leader of the Social Democrats, got under his skin too. She niggled away at the “ambitious” commitments made at the UN climate conference and wondered if his Government’s action on climate change would match his “climate rhetoric”.

“Will the kudos you got be short-lived, Taoiseach?”

Already there seems to be confusion over Ireland’s target for methane reduction. Is it the 30 per cent agreed at the summit or the 10 per cent indicated by the Tánaiste in the Dáil on Tuesday?

“Why are you making agreements at Cop that you cop out of as soon as the ink is dry on an agreement?” she wondered.

Micheál was disappointed in her and all the others who criticised his noble intentions.

Minnows. They couldn’t possibly understand.

“I just have to say that you suffer, at times, from an abundance of negativity,” he sniffily informed Róisín.

Full of Zeal

Because the Taoiseach was full of zeal following his two days in Scotland. Targets will be set and will have to be met because “we don’t have time, as a race, to hang around any longer without dealing with climate change”. He’s not wrong there.

The Government is determined Ireland will do its bit. “That is reflected in our increased commitment, over and above what we committed to in the programme for Government.” The changes will be “significant” and will be unveiled in Thursday’s long-awaited Climate Action Plan.

Deputy Shortall, unmoved by Micheál’s stirring version of The Commitments, harried him for specific examples of how these targets will be reached. She also demanded a straight answer on the vexed question of reducing cattle numbers.

Presumably the answers will come with the new plan, because they didn’t come from the Taoiseach.

Like everyone else, he must have been waiting for the final draft to emerge, with indications from Government Buildings during the day that Cabinet agreement on the finer financial details was proving difficult to nail down.

Why on earth should the young generation place one iota of faith in these politicians to solve the crisis?

Róisín wondered if Micheál was really serious at all with his carbon footprint promises.

“Yes. Yes. Absolutely!” he cried. “And I would prefer if you were a bit more engaging and more of an advocate for change as opposed to nitpicking all the time.”

Earlier, he took a swipe at Sinn Féin’s whatever-way-the-wind-blows attitude to a carbon tax. “It’s about time you got off the fence,” he told party leader Mary Lou McDonald. “You’re having an each-way bet, every week, every month in this House for the last number of years on the issue.”

Meanwhile, Leaders’ Questions rolled on and Mick Barry got his chance to speak on behalf of People Before Profit/Solidarity.

He rose to his feet, still smarting from that earlier slap-down.

"So. It is my turn now, Taoiseach."

Bigwigs

The glory in Glasgow didn’t inspire him and he said it certainly doesn’t impress young people. Mick wouldn’t have much time for the bigwigs at Cop26. A shower of Bs in his eyes: Biden, Boris and Bezos.

No, he certainly doesn’t have any time for Joe Biden. And as for Boris Johnson, he may have opened the conference dressed in green but the young people know “this is a man who slashed tax on domestic flights and supports subsidies for the fossil fuel industry”.

They have seen Jeff Bezos, “the rocket man”, pledge $2 billion to protect the environment while Amazon emitted more CO2 this year than the annual emissions of two-thirds of the countries in the world.

And he is typical member of a global corporate elite pulling the strings of capitalist politicians at the climate summit.

“Why on earth should the young generation place one iota of faith in these politicians to solve the crisis?”

Mick is off to join them.

“Tonight, I will pack my waterproofs, set my alarm and get ready to travel to Glasgow in the morning,” he announced. “Myself and a busload of young Socialist Party colleagues will join the International Socialist Alternative contingent, which will be part of the 100,000-strong protests on the streets of Glasgow this weekend.”

Old Doc Martens

You couldn’t begrudge him. He’ll be happy out, digging out his old Doc Martens and reliving his young student firebrand days when he sold the Socialist Worker on the streets of Dublin.

Had nobody a good word to say to the Taoiseach after his efforts on his country’s behalf at Cop26?

Fianna Fáil backbencher Christopher O’Sullivan stepped into the breach.

“Taoiseach, I have to take the opportunity to thank you and to congratulate you on your performance and your contribution to Cop26 in Glasgow. While it’s been met with a lot of cynicism from Opposition, I firmly believe that it was, by far, the best contribution by any Irish leader at any Conference of the Parties held to date.”

Fair play. Micheál must have been feeling a little bruised.

He hadn’t even been hanging out with the billionaires.

“In fact, I met with a farmer. I didn’t meet the Jeff Bezoses of this world at all. I met a Tom Galvin from Dingle, who travelled to Cop with a group from the Dingle peninsula who are a very innovative and creative group of people who want to create a particular approach across the peninsula to this climate issue.”

And the Taoiseach is all the richer for it.