HERE'S a starter for ten: What’s the link between the late Jack Profumo MP and the present Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD? Maybe none that immediately strikes you.

Jack Profumo was a Tory Cabinet Minister.  On June 5, 1963, Profumo was forced to admit that he had lied to the House back in March when he denied an affair with Christine Keeler, which at that time was an unforgivable offence in British politics. It brought Profumo’s career to a juddering halt. It wasn’t so much that he’d had an affair with a 'high-class hooker'. It was that he’d lied to the House of Commons.

Hit the road, Jack.

Micheál Martin has no such skeletons in his closet. However, over the past week he’s been caught up in a web in which alleged lies are a major ingredient.

Himself and Mary Lou were doing a bit of jousting in the Dáil. They were arguing about the possible removal of Rent Pressure Zones when Micheál appeared to say something that is forbidden in the Dail: He seems to have said Mary Lou was telling lies. Aiming his comment at the Sinn Féin leader, he said: “Tá an Teachta Dála ag insint bréaga arís.” (“The TD is telling lies again.”)

Mary Lou complained to the Ceann Comhairle, Verona Murphy, that she, Mary Lou, had been called a liar and asked that the Fianna Fáil leader withdraw his remarks. Verona, it seems, hasn’t a word of Irish, so she was incapable of making a ruling. Micheál insisted he hadn’t called Mary Lou a liar.

The Fianna Fáil leader seems to have escaped scot-free. The irony is that when Verona was elected Ceann Comhairle, one of Sinn Féin’s objections to her getting the role was that she was not proficient in Irish. 

There are those who say it's pointless since all politicians lie – you know it’s happening when you see their lips move. The Washington Post figured in 2021 that Donald Trump had lied 30,573 over four years. If he has maintained his lying pace, that means he’ll have told over 61,000 Presidential lies by the time he leaves office. 

The Taoiseach’s remark may not seem all that terrible – sticks and stones, etc. But at the same time, if we were to learn to accept that our elected representatives and leaders are in the habit of lying, bang goes our belief in anything that representative says. This matters, because it’s happening in a public space.

And of course there are lies and lies. Sometimes we tell lies to avoid hurting other people's feelings. But this is bigger. If it's true it calls into question the Sinn Féin leader’s integrity – note that ‘aris’ word in Micheál’s statement: ‘again’. It seems to suggest that Mary Lou consistently lies, which is a pretty serious charge.

Micheál is a very good speaker of Irish, so in addition to being accused of falsely accusing Mary Lou of being a speaker of lies, he’s indulging his own vanity to let her and the rest of those assembled know that he’s a fluent speaker of our native language. 

My favourite moment in the whole Dáil row was how Aengus Ó Snodaigh reacted to Micheál’s denial. Micheál was starting to defend himself with “Táim sásta” (I am happy’)  when Ó Snodaigh nipped in with a quick "Cé atá ag insint porkies anois?" ("Who’s telling porkies now?")

And he was right: Micheál at that moment was far from happy.

Nice one, Aengus. A truly bilingual put-down.