TAOISEACH Micheál Martin ended Barry Cowen’s frontline political career brutally – and fittingly considering his infraction – at the side of the road in Kinnegad. 

This was the first Covid summer of 2020, and Martin had only just formed his tenuous coalition with the Old Enemy, Fine Gael. The first Irish Grand Coalition.

Within days of the Government formation, a previous – from September 2016 – conviction for drink driving for Cowen had emerged. It was a low-level reading. 

Had Cowen not been driving on a provisional licence, he would have received a penalty points punishment. He had explained his position to the Dáil but more details emerged, and Martin wanted him to go in again and answer questions. But he refused.

A Cabinet minister for less than two weeks, Cowen was driving home from Government Buildings to Co. Offaly, after heated conversations with Martin, when the dreaded call came from the Taoiseach.

Usually sackings aren’t quite as brutal as portrayed. Almost invariably a minister will resign before the inevitable, but this was savage. 

I spoke to Cowen on the phone while he was still forlornly in his car at the side of the road, within minutes of his conversation with Martin. With typical Cowen bluntness, he said: ‘I’ve just been sacked.’

The minister for agriculture was gone and a new one, Dara Calleary, was promoted from chief whip. Martin had endured a terrible general election, losing seats, but he had still felt strong enough to pass over Calleary, his deputy leader for Cabinet, something that was hitherto unheard of and had caused rancour. 

But now the snubbed Calleary was in. Then, within weeks, he was out thanks to Golfgate, when senior politicians, judges and other well-known figures gathered in Clifden for an Oireachtas Golf Society outing during Covid. 

In the febrile hours after the story broke Calleary gathered one simple fact: Micheál Martin wasn’t going to wear it. So Calleary resigned. Leo Varadkar, the Fine Gael tánaiste in the Coalition, told me that he only heard about the resignation on the radio.

Soon after, Fine Gael EU Commissioner Phil Hogan was gone too over his participation in Golfgate, after a joint showdown with Martin and Varadkar.

Back in 2020, Micheál Martin was the master of all he surveyed. And he had the power and authority to sack a scion of a Fianna Fáil dynasty, ensure the resignation of his deputy leader, and see off an EU Commissioner who was a significant FG powerbroker.

In January 2026, FF Kerry TD Michael Cahill was disqualified from driving for two years after being convicted for travelling at 190kph on a motorway.

The 60-year-old, who was a party spokesman on older people and tourism and a member of the Justice Committee, was charged with dangerous driving at Ballinamona-Ballybeg, Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, on March 13, 2025.

Martin said the incident ‘was completely and utterly unacceptable’. He said Cahill had ‘rightly received his punishment in the courts, a decision he fully accepts’.

Martin announced Cahill would step down from the Justice Committee, and that the matter would also be considered by the party’s Rules and Procedures Committee.

Coincidentally, I was on the phone to a senior Fine Gael minister when the news came through about the court conviction. He said to me: ‘Oh, he’ll lose the whip, that’s a government vote gone.’

In fact, Cahill didn’t lose the whip, and while the Rules and Procedures ‘consideration’ was still going on, in April, Martin reappointed Cahill, to replace his constituency rival Danny Healy-Rae on the Agriculture Committee. 

We've since revealed he’s received a slap on the wrist. 

To put that decision in context, Frankie McCann – the grieving father of a 17-year-old girl, Kiea McCann, killed by a speeding motorist – told the MoS that the Taoiseach’s decision to reappoint Cahill was an ‘insult’ to all of the families who have lost loved ones in road tragedies. 

(The driver of the car that killed Kiea was estimated to have been travelling at 160kph at the time of the crash.)

Then, two weeks ago, another FF TD, Malcolm Byrne, was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving. 

He stepped down from the chair of the AI Committee and has already been replaced. However, Mr Byrne retains the whip, along with, of course, Michael Cahill.

It remains to be seen what happens with Byrne, but Fine Gael ministers tell me they too are aghast at the reappointment of Cahill.

The incredible decision to put him back in a strategic position at a time of spiralling road deaths and a concurrent decrease in cultural toleration of dangerous behaviour on the roads is a growing problem for Fine Gael. 

As far as Fine Gael is concerned, the Taoiseach’s diminished authority, the lack of power to sack or punish TDs guilty of behaviour unacceptable to the public for fear he’ll leak further support for his leadership, is in turn damaging the Coalition’s authority and credibility.

Contrast Martin’s ruthlessness and decisiveness six years ago with his supine acceptance of serious traffic violations now. 

Back then, a big beast was mercilessly axed. Now, a FF backbench TD can be caught driving at nearly 200kph and be rehabilitated within weeks.

Martin’s authority began to diminish at first because of his decision to cast Barry Cowen into the wilderness, thus providing a figure for FF malcontents to coalesce around (reader take note: you can add FF malcontents to death and taxes among life’s certainties). 

That was a time when the whole of centrist Ireland awaited the Sinn Féin tsunami that had just narrowly missed in 2020. 

Fianna Fáil was in the doldrums in the polls, and Martin faced almost constant dissatisfaction among his parliamentary party.

A revolt was heavily briefed throughout that long hot summer, but failed to materialise, largely because, as now, nobody of any substance stepped forward to challenge Martin, and he, a wily veteran, stood his ground, promising the public mood would change.

He was right. The Sinn Féin bubble burst, but this didn’t lead to a resurgence for either FF or FG. Instead, especially in the wake of the Dublin riots and the era of Trump 2.0, it was clear that calmer, more centrists heads would prevail. 

But who would be top dog in the Grand Coalition 2.0? It was here that Martin shone. His 2024 election campaign was a masterclass in differentiating yourself from your coalition partner while maintaining a relationship that was going to ensure FF and FG voters transferred between the historical rivals at unprecedented levels.

FF won the election-within-the-election, coming out on top in vote share and seats over FG.

As such, Martin was deemed safe as leader until the point he would hand over to Simon Harris as taoiseach in 2027. It was thought that at that stage he might just decide to step down, ending his career in success.

Enter Jim Gavin. Since that fateful misstep, Martin has hung on but he is leader in name only. 

In one recent two-day stretch alone, seven members of his parliamentary party all issued statements criticising his leadership. 

TDs and senators openly speculate on his date of departure. At the recent centenary FF Ard Fheis, it was almost universally agreed that would be at the end of Ireland’s EU presidency in December.

I even interviewed Martin’s Higher Education Minister, James Lawless, who shamelessly threw his hat in the ring for succession by quoting infamous traitor Brutus. Et Tu, James?

As Martin’s authority has ebbed away, so has the credibility of the coalition he leads. 

Senior FG figures point to the fact that on April 22, the day the Joint Transport Committee was continuing its wide-ranging analysis of road safety with a focus on a ‘continuous increase in road fatalities’, Michael Cahill was on Radio Kerry talking about his rapid return.

Referring to himself in the third person, Cahill told Jerry O’Sullivan: ‘Look, it’s either that Michael Cahill takes it [the committee position vacated by Danny Healy-Rae] or Kerry lost it. Simple as that.’

So if, like me, you find yourself asking why FF has become a Wild West party, where all kinds of misbehaviour by TDs is tolerated – or, as in Cahill’s case, rewarded – the answer is found in the fact that a no-confidence motion in the leader of Fianna Fáil is exclusively voted on by TDs. 

And a friend in need is a friend indeed.