Taoiseach Micheál Martin must drive his advisers mad. Unlike Leo Varadkar or Donald Trump, he never bigs up success stories such as the effect of Level 3 Plus on Covid or his visionary Shared Island project. Last Friday, Tony Holohan and RTÉ cheerleaders seemed to imply Level 5 was responsible for the improved Covid situation. Not so.
igures for last week prove that Level 3 Plus was solely responsible for the good news.
Let's start at the start. Back on Friday, October 16, Dr Philip Nolan, the Nphet modeller, predicted that numbers would reach "1,800 to 2,500" per day.
This prompted the Government to move to Level 5. But, in fact, Level 3 was already disproving Dr Nolan's scary prediction.
Because from Saturday, October 24, two weeks and three days after the introduction of Level 3 Plus by the Government, the number of cases started to fall.
More importantly, the number of close contacts of those cases fell dramatically - they almost halved.
Since this transformation began only two days after the introduction of Level 5, the latter could have had no effect in two or three days.
Indeed Level 3 Plus was still working as late as last Thursday. How do we know?
Because Fergal Bowers on RTÉ Six One announced last Thursday that the figures that day represent "the end of the effect of Level 3".
So why didn't the Government stick with Level 3 and spare us all the misery of this second lockdown?
Three reasons.
First, the media. Despite Ryan Tubridy's sharing two cheerleading Late Late bubbles with Dr Tony Holohan, he never asked why the HSE did nothing to increase ICU beds in the past seven months.
Second, the Government was faced with Dr Philip Nolan's apocalyptic predictions.
Finally, the Government could not run any risks as RTÉ and the media seemed to be holding ministers personally responsible for any future Covid deaths.
But now, having failed to give Micheál Martin's Government credit for the success of Level 3, and having pushed for Level 5, RTÉ and the media are invested in the latter.
Our misery-seeking media also missed the historic meaning of the Shared Island unit which was launched by the Taoiseach last week.
The unit seeks to build north-south relationships through the Good Friday Agreement and investing €500m in cross-border projects.
The Taoiseach assured the launch that "we can all work together for a shared future without in any way relinquishing our equally legitimate ambitions and beliefs - nationalist, unionist or neither".
Clearly the Taoiseach is channelling the late Seamus Mallon's pluralist vision outlined in his 2019 memoir, A Shared Home Place.
Mallon had no time for border polls or premature pressure about partition.
In the spirit of Seamus Mallon, a Shared Island moves away from pressure about territory to positivity between people. That means a move away from agitation about border polls which only increases tension between the two communities.
In sum, the benign aim of a Shared Island is to build a consensus around a shared future, where all traditions are mutually respected.
But our misery media, which prefers tribal slogans to pluralism, took a sour view of this decent attempt at dialogue.
The failure of senior figures in Fine Gael to publicly support a project of their own Government showed sourness, too.
Shamefully, neither Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe or Helen McEntee posted a single tweet in support of a Shared Island.
It was left to Heather Humphreys and Neale Richmond from the minority real republican tradition to support the pluralist project.
Naturally Sinn Féin and some civic nationalists - who claim to favour dialogue until they actually encounter a serious effort to conduct dialogue - were also sullen about a Shared Island.
But in Northern Ireland, Colum Eastwood and Claire Hanna of the SDLP warmly welcomed the Taoiseach reaching out with real money.
So did Sarah Creighton, a unionist in Dublin Castle for the launch, who said she "came away feeling positive".
But she warned that the Shared Island project "poses a challenge for unionists as well".
Though the response from political unionists like Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, was muted but positive, Sarah Creighton's fears that some unionists might find a Shared Island challenging proved well founded. The Belfast News Letter, with a rush of blood it may regret, said unionists should have nothing to do with Dublin's new 'Shared Island' unit.
Professor Liam Kennedy, a strong critic of Sinn Féin, replied with a tough piece in the News Letter titled: 'Unionists risk being seen as sulking reactionaries.'
Kennedy warned that "dismissing the Shared Island initiative, courageously advocated by Micheál Martin, will do fat lot of good in attracting non-aligned voters to unionist parties".
He then pointed out the bleeding obvious to unbending unionists. "The party which will gain most from this head-in-sand posture is SF, as it goes on to further undermine moderate nationalism, North and South."
Kennedy finished with this sensible warning: "By seeming to dismiss the Shared Island initiative, courageously advocated by Micheál Martin, its representatives risk painting themselves as sulky, reactionary and devoid of political imagination."
But moving even further away from reality, the News Letter also published a column by former DUP Peter Robinson titled: 'Northern Ireland needs a pro-Union group that will help prepare for any border poll.'
Sinn Féin and sundry civic nationalists rushed to support Robinson, which should give him food for thought.
Robinson's maverick backing for a border poll was also supported by Fianna Fáil's "senior backbencher" Jim O'Callaghan.
Last Tuesday in an interview with the online political magazine Slugger O'Toole, O'Callaghan made the argument that we needed to prepare for a border poll.
To bolster his case, he mentioned Peter Robinson's intervention at least three times.
"We need to recognise, as indeed very significant unionist politicians have recognised, that there's going to be a border poll in the next while."
Alban Maginness, a respected commentator, formerly of the SDLP, gave O'Callaghan a reality check in the Belfast Telegraph in his opinion column which was titled 'A border poll will only serve to inflame our historic enmities'.
Welcoming Micheál Martin's Shared Island initiative, Maginness wrote the following wise words:
"One thing is certain: the more a border poll is demanded, the more it unsettles unionists and destabilises the development of partnership politics at Stormont."
In his column, Maginness also had some sage advice for Fianna Fáil - a party which he clearly feels has found a refreshed republican pluralism under Micheál Martin.
"It is plain that Micheál Martin believes the old approach of rhetorically emphasising reunification does not work and there needs to be a mature and imaginative approach on how we share this island together, as people with different and opposing political identities."
Luckily a new generation in Fianna Fáil agrees with Maginness and wants to move away from rusting rhetoric of the past.
Last Friday week, The Irish Times reported that Fianna Fáil's youngest TD, James O'Connor (23) (Cork East), strongly supported the Taoiseach's Shared Island approach and believed it premature to hold a border poll this decade.
There speaks a real republican.
