Ain’t seen nothing but Harris blunders
PARTY FACES THE GALLOWS IN NEXT MONTH’S VOTE
WHEN Simon Harris became the new Fine Gael leader, he told his party faithful and the entire country – “You ain’t seen nothing yet”
And he was dead right.
We ain’t seen nothing yet. Absolutely nothing.
This Thursday marks the end of Simon Harris’s first month as Taoiseach.
And in another month’s time, his party – with him newly at the helm – will be judged by the electorate in the local and European elections.
And according to a poll published yesterday, he won’t be popping the Dom Perignon when the results roll in.
Mess
Fine Gael’s down two points – with only one other party – Aontu losing support while all the others remains unchanged except for the Independents who are up two and Sinn Fein up three.
Even Fianna Fail’s unchanged at 16 per cent while Labour’s stuck at three and the Greens at four.
The Blueshirts face the gallows in June unless they can pull something miraculous out of the mess they’ve got us and themselves into.
But if their performance so far is anything to go by, they’re already a busted flush.
Harris’s first big mistake as Taoiseach was leaving Helen Mc Entee as Justice Minister.
She’s made some big improvements during her time in office.
But she’s also come out with some howlers – particularly her claim that Dublin’s streets were safe to walk when there was open thuggery and drug-dealing in broad daylight in O’Connell Street.
Her “sure look at me, I walk the streets all the time” grated with people who live, work and suffer at the coalface of crime in Dublin city centre.
Harris had an opportunity to move her without too much embarrassment but decided instead to keep her in Justice where she’s continued to cock-up.
Her most glaring clanger recently was to declare that 80 per cent of asylum seekers arriving here have crossed the border from the North. How does she know that?
She couldn’t convincingly point to any firm, hard statistics to back up her alarming claim, instead coming out with some calculations you might find scribbled on the back of a beer mat.
And secondly, she sparked a diplomatic row with the Brits which gave Prime Minister Rishi Rich Sunak the chance to come across as Mr Smug, telling us basically to “suck it up, suckers” as he wasn’t for taking any asylum-seekers back. Sunak must have been delighted with McEntee’s 80 per cent claim as it allowed him to point out that his Rwanda policy was working already – without even one asylum seeker being sent there.
It’s obvious that Justice is not the ministry for Helen McEntee and keeping her there has only reinforced her image as an unsafe pair of hands.
And as yesterday’s poll shows, the government needs all the credibility it can get when it comes to Immigration which is now second only to Housing in people’s priorities with Health relegated to third place.
Even the removal of tents on Mount Street and bussing of asylum-seekers to better accommodation has been labelled a sign of failure as more have arrived and tents are now lining the Grand Canal.
And it’s going to get worse.
The Tik-Tok Taoiseach ain’t seen nothing yet.