Fionnán Sheahan

They all descend effectively from him one way or another, not just the Healy Ray themselves.

Any rural independent who you look at, you would say Jackie Healy Ray was the archetype.

And he stuck it out through far more tough situations than this.

So the fact that we were looking at Michael Healy Ray and people in government were predicting, well, he's going to be probably the first one to go overboard in

They'll have mapped it into the arithmetic.

Nonetheless, this does elevate the crisis once more because you basically have a minister now resigning as a result of the fuel protests of a week ago.

Yeah, also echoing his brother Danny Healy-Ray's statements in recent days where he was having a right cut off the Taoiseach too and imploring people in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to change their leaders.

So quite clearly, you know, not just, I suppose, a motion.

He's not so much a voting...

and no confidence in the government.

He's voting no confidence in Micheál Martin as Taoiseach.

So, look, that's his view.

I suppose you have to go out in a bit of a blaze of glory as well if you're going to resign over an issue.

Yeah, and he was well down the list as well in terms of speakers.

As you said, it was short and sweet.

His colleagues in government...

As of this morning, we're saying, no, no, Michael is okay.

And they were putting pressure on him to get Danny.

Meanwhile, it would appear that the Healy Reyes knew exactly what they were doing today, judging by the word that was emanating out of Kerry.

The fact as well that Danny was accompanied up to the Dáil by his son and his daughter, who were both councillors, Mara and Johnny.