Aisling Moloney

There are questions over his leadership.

Those within Fianna Fáil who have been very slow to question him up until now are very much seeing chinks in the armour

and that there might be a signal of a beginning of the end for Micheál Martin's leadership as a result of what happened in the last week.

It's the idea that the government, and because the Taoiseach Micheál Martin is at the top of that, did not strike the right chord with the public

And since then, Micheál Martin has, I suppose, taken a note of apology in a way, saying that he didn't get the tone right, that he should have been more empathetic in his messaging in relation to those people out demonstrating against the cost of fuel and blockading on the roads.

And that some of that tone didn't strike well.

And the Fianna Fáil party had a marathon campaign

parliamentary party meeting on Monday this week.

I think it was four hours around of hashing out exactly what they thought went wrong.

And it seems that Micheál Martin listened to the party and picked up on the fact that he did not get the tone right.

No, and that's one of the main issues with their response, is that they focus too heavily on the hardliners potentially.

And the idea that some people were being manipulated, this is something that the Justice Minister, Jim O'Callaghan, brought up in a very charged press conference, where he said that there are people in the protests...

While they may have started as one thing, they were manipulated and being manipulated by members of the far right.

And this again stoked anger amongst the people that were protesting, saying that they didn't want to be labelled with that and that they were ordinary people that didn't have those sort of political agendas, but more so had agendas of wanting to save their businesses and their livelihoods.

And certainly it seems that the backbenchers in Fianna Fáil, those serving the party kind of on the highways and byways of Ireland, listening to some of these farmers, farm contractors, hauliers, these people that were out protesting, that they say that they got that message loud and clear and they said it to leadership in the party.

But whatever way that message was filtered up,

the Chinese whispers of getting up to the top to Micheál Martin, it did not reach him or it did not resonate.

And that's where he's finding himself now.

And I suppose when you talk about the confidence motion and where the government had to be in that chamber to defend themselves,

you did have to put out a strong, a hard and united message.