Martina Devlin

In power but not in charge: Taoiseach Micheál Martin is facing criticism within his own ailing party

Martina Devlin Opinion Divided Coalition has frittered away our unity of purpose to fight the pandemic

An attack of de Selbyism has broken out in Cabinet circles. The tell-tale symptom is a build-up of black air - darkness spreading - whenever ministers mention anything to do with the new strategy for living with Covid-19.

Destructive: British prime minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings. Photo: Simon Dawson/Reuters

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Martina Devlin Opinion Johnson and Cummings are wreaking chaos without care for law, reputation - or others

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics, at the heart of which lies the principle that order and chaos are not necessarily polar opposites. Dominic Cummings appears to have imported this theory into the British political system.

Wrong tone: Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has used an ‘it’s for your own good’ approach. PHOTO: FRANK McGRATH

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Martina Devlin Opinion Telling pubs to keep details of who ate what will just eat up what's left of public goodwill

It's sometimes said each actor gives the public their own Hamlet and not Shakespeare's. Similarly, on the political stage, every Taoiseach offers up their own version of leadership.

Apology: Phil Hogan resigned as European commissioner for trade this week after attending the Oireachtas Golf Society dinner last week. Photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

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Martina Devlin Opinion Sorry seems to be the hardest word - if you are too arrogant to accept you were wrong

Phil Hogan wouldn't have landed himself in such a pickle if he'd taken the precaution of consulting the 12th-century rabbi and philosopher Maimonides, a leading Torah scholar during the Middle Ages.

Saga: Dara Calleary (left) stepped down as Agriculture Minister, while Taoiseach Micheál Martin was less than clear in his message. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Coronavirus is smart - unlike, unfortunately, some people who are in positions of power

Sooner or later life shows its claws, says Russian writer Chekhov in his short story Gooseberries. We have just seen a demonstration of that. Containing the spread of Covid-19 remains a work in progress, actively thwarted by a toxic fusion of disarray and rule-flouting from our political class.

'Trumpery': Tánaiste Leo Varadkar criticised Sinn Féin this week on Twitter. Photo: Gerry Mooney

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Martina Devlin Opinion 'Ireland of equals' out of reach for women judging by Varadkar's self-serving tweets

Wistful speculation about a reconfigured world after the pandemic can be heard. Granted, it would make worthwhile use of a crisis - but let's not hold our breath, judging by the bounce-back to business as usual following the 2008 economic collapse.

Beauty: The Burren’s natural attractions are clear – but Martina’s holiday was lacking the usual céad míle fáilte

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Martina Devlin Opinion Our tourist industry has a captive staycation audience - but it's fluffing chance to wow us

Pull on the green jersey and have a summer holiday at home, urges the Government - staycation for Ireland. August needn't be a wicked month if everyone spends some spare cash on Irish turf while recharging their batteries.

Trouble ahead: Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan voted against the Government. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion 'Something's missing' as time grinds on with little hope of Coalition finding stickability

Time has an elastic property and can fly or crawl, gallop or drag. In the Lewis Carroll classic, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', she asks: "How long is forever?" And the White Rabbit answers: "Sometimes, just one second."

‘Give us the money’: Bob Geldof and Midge Ure at Live Aid in London, in 1985. Photo: Getty

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Martina Devlin Opinion Government needs a compelling argument to convince us to spend our way out of trouble

Has lockdown left you with some mattress money? An unexpected nest egg? Crack it open and spend it for Ireland. Go shopping, dine out, book a weekend break to boost retailers and the hospitality sector, urges the Government.

Driven out: Barry Cowen spent 17 days as agriculture minister before being sacked. PHOTO: ROLLING NEWS.IE

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Martina Devlin Opinion When Taoiseach sacked Cowen, he showed Wild West Fianna Fáilery won't be tolerated

Usually politicians clamour for media exposure and complain about not getting enough. Their faces on TV, voices on radio, names in print - can't happen too often for their liking. But Barry Cowen has had too much of a good thing.

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Martina Devlin Opinion With compliance fraying at the edges, all the sacrifices we made may be for nothing

I saw my family for the first time since before lockdown last Sunday. We didn't do much - drank coffee, ate a simple meal, swapped news, traded novels, handed out some overdue birthday presents, broke into a leftover Easter egg - but it was magical.

Capable politician: Losing moderate unionist voice Ian Marshall from the Oireachtas is a mistake

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Martina Devlin Opinion Aspirations for shared island suffered blow when unionist voice was left off Seanad list

When Ian Marshall was making his maiden speech in the Seanad two years ago, where he held a seat as the voice of moderate unionism, he turned to an unexpected source of inspiration - his neighbour Seamus Mallon.

Unionist left off Seanad list warns of 'disconnect with North'

Ian Marshall, the first Northern unionist in seven decades to be elected to the Seanad in 2018, has criticised the deafening silence from Micheál Martin's new Government following his omission from the upper chamber.

Bobby Storey spent more than 20 years of his life in prison. Photo: PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion The Bobby Storey enigma: separating myth from reality and a hypocritical divide between Ireland's north and south

WE IRISH are a people enamoured by plucky underdog myths. Cúchulainn defending Ulster against Queen Maeve’s Connacht hordes. King Billy on his white horse saving Ireland from Rome Rule. Ulster’s blood sacrifice at Gallipoli and the Somme. Modern Ireland rising like a phoenix from the death throes of the 1916 revolutionaries.

Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill and the DUP’s Arlene Foster are working together against the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: Kelvin Boyes/PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion Dáil Éireann shamefully remains a man's world - and guess who reaps the benefit?

Simone de Beauvoir famously said men had a narrow interpretation of what counted as truth.

Courage: Margaret Hutchinson and Helen O’Donoghue, daughters of convicted rapist James O’Reilly. Photo: Collins Courts

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Martina Devlin Opinion O'Reilly abuse survivors are role models - not just for Traveller women but for us all

Imagine being a child. Completely without power. Imagine if Daddy, who's meant to love and keep you safe, does unspeakable things to you sexually - things you don't even have a name for. Then imagine how you might look for help. What to do to get it stopped. Who you could tell. This secret is so appalling you can't possibly hide it.

Protests: Elizabeth Monteiro pleads with police officers at a barricade during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in Boston. Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder

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Martina Devlin Opinion As American dream becomes a Trumpian nightmare, we can only hope voters wake up

Trumpland is a world where a passport stamped Caucasian is needed, preferably with the male box ticked too. Anyone lacking the foresight to be born white can expect difficulties.

People power: People at a Black Lives Matter protest rally outside the US Embassy in Dublin. Photo: Damien Storan.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Shameful direct provision conditions should keep our leaders off high horse on racism

Racism can be overt - like a knee on another human being's neck. Or insidious - like corralling people with few choices in life into shoddy, ill-equipped direct provision centres and shrugging off complaints with words to the effect that nobody forced them to come here.

Talks: Anne Costello, Nursing Homes Ireland director, and Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, attend a committee meeting on the Covid-19 response at Leinster House in Dublin.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Let's use this time to recalibrate how we care for our elderly - and help them stay at home

Let's talk about elder care. At home rather than in a home is where most people want to be - no disrespect to residential settings, where decent staff do their best.

Masked up: A man takes a picture of the window display at a Dublin bridal boutique. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion In this age of equality, blatant inequality has left women more open to fall-out from virus

Women are not more clever, imaginative, constructive, hardworking or vibrant than men. Nor are they less so. Women are not more needy, idle, helpless, shrill or vulnerable than men. Nor are they less so.

Time to deliver: A postman walks past a Dublin mural inspired by the HSE ‘Hold Firm’ campaign. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion Dithering politicians have kept us in limbo for 100 days - we can't let this happen again

There's a Zen proverb which advises: 'When walking, walk. When eating, eat.' It means we should concentrate on the activity we're engaged in currently.

Testing times: Leaving Cert has been cancelled for this year and replaced with ‘calculated grades’.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Why abandoning the Leaving Cert is the wrong decision at the wrong time

Granted, it's flip-flop weather, but does the Education Minister really have to embrace flip-flopping with such enthusiasm that he applies it to policy- making?

Gesture: Hearts are being knitted for people in palliative care – coronavirus patients are deprived of human touch and love from their relatives. Photo: Amber Cantwell/PA Wire

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Martina Devlin Opinion Our country is tight-knit - but stresses of lockdown could see social fabric fray

How precarious the present feels, even as the parameters of our world are about to be extended by a few kilometres. Whether the exclusion zone is 5km or 2km, our reality remains shrunken.

Members of the public pass a mural in Portobello, Dublin during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic in Ireland.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Intensive caring and good dose of common sense will deliver a superior design for life

Once upon a time, we presumed intensive care was something which only happened in hospitals - now we know intensive caring can exist on a broader scale: community-wide, city-wide and country-wide.

The truth is our inattention turned these homes into a forgotten frontline

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Martina Devlin Opinion How our neglect turned nursing homes into forgotten frontline of a Covid-19 war

An afterthought. A postscript. A scramble to play catch-up. And hundreds of people have died - some of whose deaths must have been preventable.

Testing times: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Health Minister Simon Harris and Cillian de Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, duing a visit. Photo: Aidan Crawley/EPA-EFE Pool

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Martina Devlin Opinion Covid-19 wave hasn't hit yet but frontline testing could get us ahead of the curve

There is much we don't yet know about Covid-19. But there are some things we do know which could be used as part of the containment drive. Number one, we know it's highly contagious. Number two, we know people in frontline healthcare are more exposed to the virus than others in the population - among those who've contracted it, one in four is a health worker.

Message of hope: A quote from Seamus Heaney is chalked on a gate near Martina Devlin’s home.

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Martina Devlin Opinion We all seek out hope but it's important to remember that lockdown is not forever

Abraham Lincoln borrowed a nugget of wisdom from medieval Persian poetry for a speech delivered six years before his assassination.

Restrictions: Cao Junjie demonstrates a safety pod he created to protect his two-month old baby from Covid-19, in Shanghai, China. Photo: Reuters

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Martina Devlin Opinion Chinese quarantine a very different beast to light lockdown we're living with here

Where were you when the Twin Towers were hit? When the bank guarantee was announced? When the Princess of Wales died? I don't suppose too many people remember where they were when they first heard the coronavirus or Covid-19 mentioned. But it is epoch-defining. And it will impact personally on us all, in large ways and small.

Light reading: Paschal Donohoe always likes to have a book on hand.
Photo: Gerry Mooney

Paschal Donohoe rules out Taoiseach bid as he tells of hopes to write a book

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has an ambition - and it's not to be Taoiseach.

All in it together: Families are being forced to spend much more time together as the Covid-19 crisis has gathered pace. Photo: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

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Martina Devlin Opinion Surreal is the new real as 'social distancing' reveals our simple need for human contact

Before the coronavirus pandemic, concerns were raised from time to time about over-reliance on the virtual world. People risked turning into recluses, warned researchers - apps for groceries, takeaway meals, clothing companies, dry-cleaning services and Amazon meant internet users were becoming anti-social.