MICHEÁL MARTIN has said he didn’t intentionally scupper the Taoiseach’s election announcement yesterday evening. 

Martin scooped the Taoiseach yesterday announcing that the general election will be called this Friday.

Beating Simon Harris to the announcement, Martin told Virgin Media News that it was his understanding the election would be called on Friday.

“We’re looking forward to it. You can see people out and about already in terms of campaigning, but it will be on Friday,” the Tánaiste said.

A short time later, the Fine Gael leader announced on RTÉ’s Six One News that he would ask President Michael D Higgins to dissolve the Dáil on Friday.

When asked by The Journal today if Harris was annoyed at him for beating him to the punch, Martin replied:

“I did it somewhat inadvertently, because Claire Brock asked me a straightforward question, I suppose, [saying] ‘we’re going on Friday?’ And I kind of, without thinking, said ‘Yeah, we are’.

“Because I think everybody knew we were,” he said. 

“To me, it was no news that the Dáil was going to be dissolved on Friday, and I just said it naturally,” Martin said. 

He added that it “wasn’t intentional” to get in ahead of the Taoiseach, adding “because I think it’s the worst kept secret for the last couple of weeks that it would be dissolved this Friday”.

“I mean, it would have looked very awkward for me to be trying to pretend in an interview late Wednesday evening I didn’t know whether it was going to be Thursday or Friday, so I just said, look, yeah, it’ll be Friday,” he added.

“We’re all looking forward to it, and we are. It’ll be a short election, although we’ve had, over the last number of weeks, a lot of engagement on the doors and other candidates have been out and about,” said Martin.