Q: What to do with an opportunity? A: Seize it

 Leo Varadkar is a big man with a big job to do. In this post-Christmas phase, one big part of that big job is immigration. In today’s Irish Times, we’re told,  there are “far-right myths” about migration that must be addressed ‘as it will be the big issue of 2024’.

Well, I mean, you betcha. The opinion polls in the South have been consistently punishing for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and consistently kind to Sinn Féin. The republicans have been topping the opinion charts by 10% and more, month after month, year after year. But here out of nowhere has come the knife attack outside Colaiste Mhuire in Dublin and the street violence that followed. Leo may outwardly be wearing his concerned-doctor face, but inwardly he is lepping around with a vigour that’d put Michael Flatley to shame.

That’s because he sees a chink of light in his 24/7 struggle with Sinn Féin. For the first time just about ever, the Shinners have slipped about three percentage points because they called for the resignation of the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner. This was,  Leo claimed, politicising the Colaiste Mhuire attack  and the rioting. It’s difficult to see how the riots could be anything else but the responsibility of the Minister for Justice and the South’s top cop, but Leo said it was opportunitism, and to his astonishment a number of people appear to have believed him. Leo is now planting his manly shoulder behind the wheel which has moved just a teensy bit.

Mind you, he has to explain away the fact that  the South’s government has decided to reduce welfare rates and to limit State accommodation for new arrivals from Ukraine to 90 days. That makes Leo look tough on immigrants from  Ukraine, but he’s keen to explain that he’s not being a bit miserly with those poor people. “What we tried to do is align with what other European countries do, and as other European countries change their offering we thought it appropriate that we should change ours as well”.

Stand by for Leo and his lads and lasses to go on about immigration and being nice to immigrants, and hooligans and scumbags (I quote government sources, Virginia)  out to attack the police and loot every shop within a half-mile radius of O’Connell Street.

You might say that Leo was seizing this opportunity to bash the Shinners as hard as he possibly can, and you’d be right. But don’t say he’s being opportunistic. In his vocab, that’s a term only to be used in referring to Mary Lou McDonald’s party.