{"id":354058,"date":"2026-03-19T09:05:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/354058\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:05:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:05:06","slug":"the-oscar-for-best-fianna-fail-minister-in-a-supporting-role-goes-to-jim-ocallaghan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/354058\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oscar for best Fianna F\u00e1il Minister in a supporting role goes to … Jim O\u2019Callaghan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the first day back after the recess, a big D\u00e1il shout-out for the two big winners of last weekend: Academy Award winner Jessie Buckley<\/a> and Ireland\u2019s Triple Crown heroes.<\/p>\n

Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>, the Minister for Justice, was delighted to have the opportunity to commend Jessie\u2019s \u201csuccess and outstanding achievement\u201d in winning an Oscar for Best Actress and \u201cacknowledge the role of the Irish rugby team\u201d in retaining the title.<\/p>\n

He must have been surprised when Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> didn\u2019t open Leaders\u2019 Questions with a congratulatory nod.<\/p>\n

But the Sinn F\u00e9in leader was probably too busy psyching herself up for another matinee performance of her punchy one-woman D\u00e1il show: \u201cA Do-Nothing Government.\u201d <\/p>\n

She hit familiar rhetorical marks very early on with a brief scene-setter about households getting \u201chammered\u201d by \u201cskyrocketing\u201d fuel prices while the cost of diesel and home heating oil has \u201cspun out of control\u201d with Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael \u201cabsent\u201d on the issue. <\/p>\n

Mary Lou neither had a full house nor a top quality audience, but she got stuck in nonetheless. She would have preferred to have addressed the Taoiseach himself, but with Miche\u00e1l Martin on St Patrick\u2019s week duty in the US, Jim O\u2019Callaghan was in as his understudy. <\/p>\n

She treated him to her big line.<\/p>\n

\u201cA do-nothing Government, sitting on your hands, refusing to help while workers, motorists and families are fleeced.\u201d<\/p>\n

She forget to say \u201cput to the pin of their collar\u201d during her virtuoso vexation, but it\u2019s a fluid script.<\/p>\n

As people suffer, she told Jim, the Taoiseach has been saying it is too early to act while promising his Government is keeping the situation \u201cunder review\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Taoiseach survives White House shark tank unscathedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mary Lou shuddered.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy. God.\u201d <\/p>\n

Never heard the like of it before for detachment and disconnection.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, people can\u2019t wait as Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael twiddle your thumbs,\u201d she informed Jim, whose thumbs looked fine. <\/p>\n

You see, Sinn F\u00e9in has the solution to runaway prices \u2013 cut the taxes on petrol, diesel and home heating oil. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo more excuses, no more beating around the bush, no more delay.\u201d <\/p>\n

The party had legislation prepared and ready to go. The Government just had to implement it. <\/p>\n

Her deputy leader in the D\u00e1il, Pearse Doherty, introduced it a short time later. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mineral Oil Tax Emergency Cost of Living Reduction Bill 2026\u201d hadn\u2019t the immediate grab-you impact of \u201cA Do Nothing Government\u201d but Pearse put his heart into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legislation can be passed today if the Government is willing,\u201d he passionately declared, knowing, like the audience, that wouldn\u2019t be happening.<\/p>\n

Why? Because the Government is going to write it.<\/p>\n

The matter is being \u201cconsidered\u201d Jim O\u2019Callaghan repeatedly assured the House in his very considered answers to a rush of urgent calls for action. <\/p>\n

He might have wanted to say more, but as a mere stand-in (nursing leadership aspirations) he can\u2019t be definitive about anything. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has been indicated by the Taoiseach is, most probably, we will look at the issue of excise duties for the purpose of cutting them to take pressure off consumers,\u201d he carefully revealed to Mary Lou.<\/p>\n

He told Labour\u2019s Ivana Bacik: \u201cObviously people are concerned about the rising cost of fuel, and that\u2019s why the Taoiseach, and indeed, the T\u00e1naiste and other Government ministers have indicated measures will be probably taken in response to what\u2019s happening to the price of fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Impassioned pleas for help from Opposition deputies representing all parts of the country and all shades of political opinion will have been reflected behind the scenes in interventions from Government backbenchers hearing the same concerns from constituents. <\/p>\n

Such was the appetite for this crisis, trooper that she is, Mary Lou returned for an encore during the Order of Business, calling for a debate on the price rises and \u201cA Do Nothing Government\u201d.<\/p>\n

This fuel issue was the burning issue of the day and even if Big Jim was not at liberty to say, the story was only going one way.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, as the evening debate on Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s emergency Bill got going, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris informed the chamber that the Government was finalising an \u201cappropriate intervention\u201d which will be waved through by the Cabinet when it meets early next week.<\/p>\n

No surprise there. <\/p>\n

There had been another big hint earlier from the Minister for Justice, reminding the D\u00e1il of how \u201cthe Taoiseach indicated when he was in the United States that measures are being considered and it is likely that there will be measures introduced\u201d.<\/p>\n

What a man. <\/p>\n

Jim O\u2019Callaghan was lost in admiration for his boss. <\/p>\n

He may have started with much deserved praise for Buckley and the Ireland rugby squad, but he spent far more time lauding Miche\u00e1l Martin for the \u201cexcellent job\u201d he did with the tricky role of playing opposite erratic prima donna president Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday. <\/p>\n

If the Minister for Justice had his way, Miche\u00e1l, upon his triumphant return from the United States, would be conveyed in an open-top bus through bunting bedecked streets to a hero\u2019s welcome in a civic space large enough to accommodate the cheering masses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny fair-minded person who looked at the events in the White House yesterday would recognise that the Taoiseach did an excellent job,\u201d he cooed after the Labour leader expressed \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d over Miche\u00e1l\u2019s failure \u201cto push harder against Trump\u2019s delusional ramblings\u201d and \u201cto condemn his illegal war in Iraq\u201d. <\/p>\n

Jim murmured an acid response. \u201cObviously, if you\u2019d been there you would have dealt with it completely differently and more effectively …\u201d <\/p>\n

Except if Ivana were in power, she wouldn\u2019t have been there anyway because Labour didn\u2019t want the Taoiseach to attend, he added.<\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l delivered a \u201cvery important message\u201d at an \u201cextremely difficult time\u201d between Europe and the US and it was a \u201creal advantage\u201d to have him there as leader of a non-Nato European country, burbled Big Jim. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he did Ireland and Europe proud.\u201d <\/p>\n

Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit didn\u2019t think so. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot a single word of criticism of the flagrant, murderous breaches on international law that Trump and Israel are engaged in,\u201d he fumed. <\/p>\n

What the Taoiseach did in the White House was \u201cextremely important\u201d, repeated Jim. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, if you were Taoiseach, Deputy Boyd Barrett, you wouldn\u2019t have gone to the United States,\u201d sniffed Jim. <\/p>\n

Oh, yes he would.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have gone to the United States and stood with people like Mamdani who reminded us of our own history of opposition to colonialism and war but I certainly wouldn\u2019t stand beside a warmonger like Trump,\u201d responded RBB.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Jim pounced.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mentioned the Mayor of New York, Mamdani. Of course, he did go to the White House. He\u2019s not refusing to meet president Trump because of what\u2019s happening in Iran … the Irish Government believes there should be engagement when it comes to seeking to resolve disputes. Your view is: stay away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was one other thing he had to say before resting his case. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I commend the Taoiseach again for the great performance he put in yesterday.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the Oscar for best Fianna F\u00e1il Minister in a supporting role goes to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the first day back after the recess, a big D\u00e1il shout-out for the two big winners of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15049,61,60,18573,31650,43,12636],"class_list":["post-354058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dail-eireann","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-miriam-lord","tag-news","tag-oireachtas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}