After the FF Presidential election debacle, how long before Micheal Martin resigns or is pushed?

That would be more reason for a ff heave now, to give their new leader time as government leader before handing over to Harris.

Meanwhile on RTE, Martin has effectively expressed confidence in himself. Hard to know if the FFers will even bother taking any action before the Christmas break. It seems to be the intention to stretch this report thing out for as long as possible until the FFers lose interest. Wouldn't be surprised if the report isn't released due to unforseen circumstances.

He is going to brazen it out. FF too afraid to do anything or too cozy.

Waited till the last possible second that he could get away with to release it. I bet none of his supporters will have trouble making the meeting.

It really looks bad on Jim Gavin:

"Mr Gavin did not participate in the compilation of the report and declined to be interviewed."

He took FF backing and funding. Then he quit during the campaign (but only when it was too late to nominate any replacement). He lied about his tenant "issues". Now he won't even speak to them.

If you leave aside the politics and infighting in FF, on the face of it this is a report to see what happened and learn from the mistakes for next time. And he won't help.

What could he say in the report? Yeah I lied...oooops

Don't think I'd be contributing either in his situation

This is now over.

Keith Barr went to Jack Chambers. Chambers took it to Sean Dorgan. Jim Gavin followed up with Sean Dorgan. Sean Dorgan and two other senior party execs did the due diligence on Gavin.

Fionnán Sheahan of the Indo started asking questions, because no doubt he was prompted by the one-time tenant himself, Niall Donald, Deputy Editor of the Sunday World, a paper also in the Indo stable.

Dorgan and Co took it to Gavin, 'what's this Jim?'

'No idea, means nothing to me'

The questions persist, Dorgan and Co go back to Gavin, 'Seriously Jim, are we going to have a problem with this and you?'

'I don't know what its all about guv'nor!'

Dorgan and Co go to Micheál, 'we've done the background, this lad is good, wide appeal, a capable leader, calm and experienced'. MM says 'fine, any skeletons?' Dorgan and Co say 'nothing of concern'. MM and Chambers say OK, we'll back him to the party, save us any by-elections or re-shuffles etc

Billy Kelleher gets the hump about the party brass quietly orchestrating a coronation and publicly criticises the delays and the secrecy. Some of Billy's lickspittles get in to his head 'oh sure you should definitely go yourself Billy, the country needs you Billy, you're the ideal candidate Billy'. Billy gets the few signatures and goes gung-ho to the parliamentary party, playing on their sense of loyalty to FF's own and he gets 39% of the vote, but Jimbo is off to the races.

Barely 10 days in, a full account of the debt to the tenant is released, with Niall Donald going public, and he has kept all the receipts, literally and metaphorically. Jimbo is bang to rights, having either lied, or had a passing case of Alzheimers.

Micheál, no doubt raging at everybody, deploys the shepherd's hook, and the rest is history.

Conclusion:

Yes, as party president and political boss, MM carrys a share of the blame. But the selection is a matter for the salaried FF party executive, its what they do, for all elections, including the skeleton hunt. And they failed badly. Honestly, if I were Sean Dorgan, I would retire.

But though wounded, the Taoiseach has enough loyalty to secure him for now. Any challenger may get to 12 signatures to create a contest, but not one of them is stupid enough to think they can win. Not right now. So they will all keep the powder dry and MM will get a free run, for at least the next 13 months until the EU presidency ends. Whether there is an open challenge then, very much depends on his performance in those next 13 months, on the next budget, on delivering the conditions to speed up housing and infrastructure, on another diplomatically successful trip to Washington in March etc.

And frankly by 2027, MM himself, by then facing his 67th birthday and 16th year as FF leader and 43rd year in politics, might signal discreetly to his would-be successors, that when he hands over the office of Taoiseach to the FG leader (whoever that is) at Christmas 2027, that he will indeed resign as party leader and give the new man or woman 18 months to bed-in as Tánaiste and leader before the first big electoral test, the locals and Europeans in June 2029.

Ehh, it's a systematic failure of the party to select a proper candidate for high office, of course it matters.

Even when Gavin was winning All Ireland's hand over fist he barely gave an interview to either press or television. I'm surprised that people are even raising this point regarding him giving interviews.

There's no question of Martin leading them into the next election and I doubt he would even say that himself. The issue is (a) whether he stays until his term as Taoiseach ends in December 2027 and (b) whether he evens lasts until the EU presidency next July. My current feeling is that he will survive until the start of 2027. That remains to be seen.

On SF, I don't think they're half as 'left' as they make themselves out to be and I suspect they would be quite happy in a coalition with Martin's successor, which looks at present like it'll be Jim O'Callaghan. They're already moving pretty smartly away from the 'combined left' coalition which appears to have been a temporary cloak to obscure the fact that they didn't have a credible presidential candidate of their own.