Mary Regan

Like, the Healyways...

Michael Healy-Ray spoke about negotiating with the government for that half a billion deal that they announced on Sunday night.

He said he was in negotiations in that.

And then when it came to the news, 6-1 on RTE, the vox pops off his local constituents...

were being done outside his own fuel-filling petrol station in Kilgarvan.

So he was in there negotiating as an owner of a petrol station, as someone who owns a contracting business, the family does, and he was trying to exert the best possible deal for that sector...

And then in the heel of the hunt, he said it wasn't enough and he did what was needed to protect his political business.

But the Healy Rays have always relied on this intersection between business and politics and they need the business connections are important and the politics connections for their business.

So you'd have to wonder if he damaged relations a lot with the government by the way he handled his resignation.

But the flip side is...

he got maximum drama out of it, maximum attention.

And I think a Hollywood producer could not have come up with the way he dramatically announced that resignation.

So that's the Healy Rays out of the way and done and dusted.

And we thought that story would linger for a few more days.

But 24 hours later and attention turns to the Fianna Fáil backbenchers.

He does TikToks from literally the cattle shed, feeding cattle, you know, which is quite the zeitgeist given all that's happened.

Well, the fact that someone was departing his government while he was on the phone to the Canadian prime minister and the fact that he is in Berlin as the sort of rebels are getting louder back home, I think it shows the really difficult balancing act that he's trying to achieve here between international statesmen and someone who has to kind of keep the home fires burning.

Is he too sort of bigger picture, sort of rising above everything when, you know, really what's needed is someone who kind of has the feels for the country?

And you spoke about the changeover from Leo Varadkar resigning and Simon Harris bringing what they described at the time as the new energy.

But the difference that time is Simon Harris was nipping at Leo Varadkar's heels for some time.