'Twas a historic week where we commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of Michael Collins while witnessing the fall of Troy.
Which begs the question, what would the Big Fella make of part time landlord and politician (or is it the other way round?) Robert Troy if he were around to witness his downfall and the revelations which brought it about?
It’s often been said that Ireland has more history than it can handle. It’s just a pity we seldom learn anything from it after all the scandals involving property and politicians.
Read More: Robert Troy to get extra €4,000 a year in pension payments after two-year stint as junior minister
The sight of the leaders of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael together marking the death of General Collins has been interpreted as the healing of Civil War wounds.
It could as easily be seen as political expediency and all about today’s politics and the threat to their century-long political dominance posed by Sinn Fein, rather than the events of 100 years ago.
After the events of this week their appearance at Beal na Blath last Sunday will be seen by many as two landlord parties banding together to fight those who threaten their vested interests.
Indeed, Fine Gael’s hijacking of Collins’ legacy has been utterly shameless as the great man was dead 10 years before the party was formed and most likely would have wanted nothing to do with it had he lived.
You could not see Michael Collins aligning himself to Mussolini and Hitler as so many early Fine Gaelers did in the 1930s and beyond.
Strange that there’s never a mention of the party’s actual founder and first leader Eoin O’Duffy when they have a prima fascist case for remembering him.
Still, we often don’t realise we are watching history in the making until we can see their consequences in the fullness of time.
The Robert Troy affair is a case in point, and what started with a junior minister failing to disclose he owned or had a stake in a number of properties developed into something that has the potential to severely damage both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
Had Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar stated that what Robert Troy did was unacceptable and indicated his position was untenable at the outset this story would have been dead in the water last week.
But their unequivocal support for Troy, who had failed to fully declare the extent of his large property portfolio in the Dail register of interests, in which TDs are required to declare their assets, is what will anger the public.
The fact that the Minister of State who supposedly oversaw company regulations didn’t abide by Dail regulations for over a decade should have led to his instant dismissal.
Far from it – in the hours before Mr Troy’s resignation on Wednesday evening Leo Varadkar was continuing to fight to keep him as a minister in his own department.
However, the reality is that most ordinary people probably had never even heard of Robert Troy until it was disclosed that he had a large property portfolio.
And this is all happening at a time when the country is in the grip of a housing crisis which President Michael D Higgins described as a national “disaster”.
The attempts by the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael leaders to defend the indefensible have raised even more anxiety about the disastrous housing policies of both these parties which have made it impossible for many people to buy or even rent a home.
On the other hand if, like Robert Troy, you have up to 11 properties and rents are going through the roof, then the current coalition’s housing policies are working just fine and exactly as intended.
It was somewhat ironic that any political gains clocked up by Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar paying tribute to Michael Collins’ legacy have been completely wiped out by the forced resignation of Robert Troy and their attempts to defend him.
In his resignation letter Robert Troy revealed that he bought his first house aged 20.
However, this will only further enrage those in their 30s who have no hope of ever owning one property, never mind 11 of them.
As for Robert Troy’s future that will be up to the voters of Longford–Westmeath to decide but he’ll probably be re-elected, although I wouldn’t bet my house on it.
And for the record, I’ve just the one.
