Sean Defoe

He was also quite critical of Micheál Martin's leadership of the entire thing, but of the government in general, saying he has grave reservations about Micheál Martin as Taoiseach.

Now, the other track that was going on here is Danny Healy-Ray.

And as we said, the expectation was he wasn't going to vote with the government.

There was obviously meetings had

within the two sides of the family, the Danny side and Michael's side.

And ultimately, there is a feeling that there couldn't be a split in the empire, if you like, that there wasn't going to be a case where the Healy Rays would have one member in and one member out of government and try to campaign on that basis.

This is a

A grouping, if not a party, that sends out leaflets with both of their faces on it, joint leaflets telling people in different parts of Kerry what way to vote.

Vote number one Danny in this area, vote number one Michael in this area and give your twos accordingly.

And that the subsequent split, I suppose, wasn't worth the ultimate damage electorally it could do.

Definitely.

And even more so after yesterday, when he gave a dull speech that didn't reference the army at all or anything that he had done.

It wasn't seen to give any sort of a mea culpa, sort of suggested that anyone who was criticising the guards were criticising him and him.

didn't really address a lot of the things that his government colleagues even would have wanted to see addressed.

There is certainly a bit of a riff there in this idea that he is the, you know, the absolute front runner or the favourite to replace Micheál Martin, I think is damaged.

And it's an interesting one because if you do take the long-term view that Micheál Martin is,

one way or another is unlikely to be the leader.

And there's various views in Fianna Fáil as to when that will be, be it at the changeover, when he becomes Tóniste, be it ahead of the next election or even later.

You now have the two front runners for that, his seeming chosen one in Jack Chambers, incredibly damaged after the presidential election and the Jim Gavin fiasco.

And now Jim O'Callaghan, very, very significantly damaged after this, as well as Micheál Martin himself taking an awful lot of flack.