Micheál Martin, now in his second stint as Ireland’s Taoiseach, is by our standards a political veteran, having led Fianna Fáil for the past 15 years. But like our Prime Minister Keir Starmer, after finding domestic politics ever more challenging, he is finding solace on the international stage.

Micheál Martin’s response was simply not the way allies or partners act towards each other

Micheál Martin’s response was simply not the way allies or partners act towards each other

Last week, Martin lived up to the Irish desire to be the ‘Most Oppressed People Ever’. In the Dáil he gave the Irish government’s official response to the final report from Operation Kenova, the investigation into the handling by British security forces of the agent within the Provisional IRA codenamed ‘Stakeknife’.

After some windy words about openness and transparency, the Taoiseach described ‘the British Army’s knowledge of the Provisional IRA’s activities’ as ‘utterly abhorrent and shocking’. He proudly declared that ‘the position of my government and every government I have served in is that we must have absolute openness and accountability’, and observed that ‘the identity of Stakeknife is clear to everybody here and I have previously stated that the agent should be officially named by the United Kingdom government.’ Martin went on to identify Stakeknife........

© The Spectator