Fianna Fáil has suffered unduly from doing much of the Covid ‘heavy-lifting’

So, it’s as good a time as any to take some stock of how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected our politics, and what political impact it will have left us in the medium to longer term.

Let’s recall that the last general election on February 8, 2020, took place in the final days of what we now call “BC” or Before Covid. It threw up a surprise stellar performance by Sinn Féin on 25pc and a brutal showing for both Fianna Fáil on 22pc and Fine Gael on 21pc.

The 140-day slow bicycle race to forming the three-party coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, brought us evidence of profound change. Events since then have largely cemented that change.

A slew of opinion polls so far have told us the ones who gained from this pandemic are Sinn Féin, who can happily continue to be right about all that is wrong, and Fine Gael, for whom the story of their gains is a little more complex.

The big losers are undoubtedly Fianna Fáil and to a lesser extent the Green Party. The irony is that both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin have each been the subject of controversies related to data protection rules.

The opinion polls have been showing Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil as low as half their very poor general election showing, with very dire predictions as to their fortunes in the greater Dublin area, which has more than a quarter of the nation’s TDs.

Fianna Fáil’s sliding fortunes appear to have benefitted Fine Gael, which has soared into the high 30s at one stage and is still logged solidly on 30pc in the polls. It happened largely while they were heading an interim government which led a very consensual lockdown 12 months ago and dispensed largesse in the form of special Covid payments. Over that period, for example, we saw the former health minister, Simon Harris, morph from “zero to hero” in an unlikely reversal of political fortunes.

Things were made worse in the early days of the three-party coalition, which took office on June 27, by a series of calamities whacking Fianna Fáil just as they got their legs under the government table. But leaving those calamities aside it has to be said that they took on much of the “Covid heavy-lifting.”

Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was left to communicate more complex, and less palatable messages of slow easing of restrictions which then had to be twice re-imposed. Fianna Fáil also took on the two coalface ministries with Norma Foley in Education and Stephen Donnelly in Health.

Ms Foley picked up the threads after a struggling start. Mr Donnelly has had, and continues to have, a very tough time. He appears gaffe-prone and not entirely up with the play at times.

But it is also true that many see him as the sacrificial lamb amid all this as misery follows misfortune. One can reasonably ask for example why the health department had to take on the mandatory hotel quarantine regime when a handful of other departments could have taken that strain. One can also ask why the vaccine roll-out was not given to one designated minister whose sole task was to drive it politically.

There is serious unrest among the Fianna Fáil dwindling band of party faithful. They are talking openly about when – not if – they will seek to depose Micheál Martin as leader. There is a group within the parliamentary party who feel that Covid 19 – rather than holding the keys to Government Buildings – are what staves off a heave right now.

Yesterday’s Red C poll for April, published in the Business Post, does show some fractional good news for Mr Martin. His party is shown as having gained 2pc – but they are still on a lamentable 13pc. That is still four points below their nightmare outing in the February 2011 general election when they were driven to the brink of extinction.

Some within the party privately confide that the voters’ judgment a decade ago – that Fianna Fáil had lost its reputation for competence – still dogs them. The problems afflicting the vaccine roll-out are being lumped into the same box of public opinion.

Others will tell you that, while Fianna Fáil is now on a very dangerous corner, all is not necessarily lost. If progress continues on the roll-out, and there is a successful reopening of the country this summer, all need not be lost for Micheál Martin & Co. A national feel-good bounce could give a boost to Fianna Fáil’s standing.

We shall see. Tomorrow Mr Martin, now aged 60, will register for the vaccine himself, awaiting his turn in a mannerly show of respect. All eyes will be on him on Thursday as he issues a roadmap for a slow and careful reopening.

The signs are that the Taoiseach will resist any temptation to do the populist thing right now. Clearly, people are weary but also fretful in equal parts. That Red C poll yesterday showed people pretty evenly split, with 51pc wanting a quicker easing of restrictions and 46pc favouring the cautious approach.

The Green Party's fortunes are harder to assess as they have always been a niche party. They scored 7pc in the general election and their transfer-friendliness gave them a record 12 TDs.

That latest Red C poll puts them down at 4pc. It seems reasonable to assume their recent public squabbles have not helped. So they need to get back to core values and communicate their achievements, which are good, more effectively.