AS LEADER OF Fine Gael, Simon Harris has found himself with a dilemma that’s thematically appropriate for the week that’s in it.

After all, how many great horror films are there where scary phone calls serve as an essential plot device? Scream. The Ring. When A Stranger Calls. The remake of When A Stranger Calls. The Black Phone. Phone Booth, kind of (it’s not technically a horror, but I’d certainly be scared to be stuck talking on the phone all day). 

We can now add to that list Fine Gael’s ongoing internecine drama, the centrepiece of which has been a much-discussed phone call made by Tánaiste Simon Harris to Minister for the Arts, Culture, Media, Communications, Sports and Patridges in Pear Trees Patrick O’Donovan. 

Shortly after this call, O’Donovan was admitted to hospital and kept in ICU for a time after falling ill during an EU presidency event in Limerick. Harris has since denied that the phone call was anything out of ordinary, specifically saying that he had not asked O’Donovan to resign his post.

Such a clarification was necessary as O’Donovan’s admission to hospital came days after an article in The Sunday Times which reported that a minister from Fine Gael, speaking on the condition of anonymity, had raised the prospect that O’Donovan could be ousted from his place at cabinet over concerns about his health.

Enter Harris, with an appearance on Newstalk during the week, wherein he simultaneously said that he would not tolerate Fine Gael parliamentarians briefing the press against one another, while also arguing that it would be futile to try to establish which of the seven senior Fine Gael cabinet ministers did exactly that to O’Donovan. 

When pushed on that matter by Claire Byrne Show host Ciara Doherty (always fun when an eponymously titled radio show has a guest host), Harris clarified that when he said such things wouldn’t be tolerated, he was referring to ‘the culture’ of his party. It’s sort of like if one of your siblings stole the last of your Choc Ices from the freezer and your dad refused to investigate the matter because Ireland’s culture is broadly speaking not permissive of theft. 

Asked repeatedly whether he would simply ask the five senior Fine Gael cabinet ministers who are neither him nor Patrick O’Donovan if they were the ones behind the story, Harris told Doherty that he wouldn’t even know how to go about it. 

“I don’t know, truthfully, how you would do that, and I’m just being bluntly honest with people, and I think Patrick would know this too. I don’t know how you’d establish that. Someone anonymously said something to a journalist. They shouldn’t have said it. It shouldn’t happen again,” were his exact words.

Okay, well… Just spitballing here, but you could say: “C’mere to me now, did you tell The Sunday Times that Patrick O’Donovan’s job is in jeopardy because of his health, and if not, do you have any idea which of the other four of you might have?”

It’s probably not a great look for the leader of any party — let alone one who will soon pas de bourrèe his way back into the role of Taoiseach — to tell the public at large that he simply has no way of discerning whether the other senior members are lying to him. Nor does it seem ideal for Simon Harris to suggest that his cabinet ministers possess such an aptitude for deception that to ask them for the truth in this matter would simply be a waste of valuable time that could be otherwise spent practicing his ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me that’ frown.

To be fair to Simon Harris, he has always proven himself adept at tolerating that which might seem intolerable to others. It was as Minister for Health that Harris failed to keep his promise to clear the child scoliosis treatment waiting list. That would certainly have been intolerable for the children and their families who suffered, but under Harris’ stewardship, we learned to tolerate it. 

Harris remained on brand throughout the interview, saying that party’s focus is now on getting O’Donovan ‘back to work’, which is, of course, the most Fine Gael thing you could possibly say about a man who was in the intensive care unit up until a few days ago. Up early in the morning, and all that. And so there the matter lies, at least until Patrick O’Donovan returns to cabinet and cashes in all those youth culture cards that never got approved for one steaming bowl of revenge. 

Ultimately, what Simon Harris is telling us that he doesn’t want to know who briefed against Patrick O’Donovan. If he were to ever find out, then he’d only be asked more questions about his phone calls and what he’s had to say to who and whether he’s threatened to sack them. The remaining nine weeks of paternity leave that he’s opted not to take must be looking pretty good right now. 

Despite all of this drama, there was a major win for the government this week in its fight against homelessness. While we’re all used to the homelessness records being broken month after month (except for the months when they stay roughly the same), that didn’t happen this month! At least as far as we know. Thanks to the public sector pay dispute, the Department of Housing was unable to provide the homelessness figures for September. See? And we all thought the strike and industrial action were a consequence of a hapless and ill-prepared government. These guys are smarter than they look. Can’t break homelessness records if you stop keeping the records. 

Unfortunately, the nurses have been keeping tabs on their end of things and published figures this week that show hospital overcrowding at its worst level in four years, with 824 people on trolleys around the country as of this Wednesday. Maybe this is one of those situations that’s fine because, culturally speaking, we don’t tolerate overcrowding in hospitals. Which for whatever reason means it’s fine to tolerate it in practice. 

No, but there was one bit of good news this week. While Patrick O’Donovan awaits his return to the wilds of Leinster House, a 257lb turtle named Molly that’s been undergoing rehabilitation in Kerry for 22 years was released back into the wild off the coast of Portimão. Which is not in Kerry, as it turns out. 

Molly washed up on Irish shores back in 2004, meaning that she’s been here to watch pretty much the entire thing collapse in on itself from 2008 onwards. Child homelessness was at roughly 492 back then, compared to the most recent figure of 5,830 for August of this year. 

It was originally believed that poor Molly would never recover sufficiently to be reintroduced to her natural habitat, but after two decades of nurturing, it is hoped she will now find her way back to the Gulf of Mexico, which is where she originally came from. 

And as for who spread the rumour that her health would hold her back, well, it would be futile to try to find out, wouldn’t it?