Row with Éamon Ó Cuív gives new leader chance to establish himself but he may need to distance party from Bertie Ahern
Sometimes when you have to demonstrate your authority the best thing to do is pick a fight. Or better still let someone start the row for you.
Micheál Martin can thank his most recalcitrant and awkward of parliamentary colleagues for allowing the leader of Fianna Fáil to show who is boss.
The grandson of Éamon de Valera, the founder of Fianna Fáil, initiated a rebellion on Europe late last week that would have warmed the cockles of British eurosceptic hearts. Éamon Ó Cuív's apparent opposition to the EU Fiscal Treaty, which Irish voters will be asked to endorse in a forthcoming referendum, would not have been out of place at the UK Independence Party's annual conference last weekend.
While Martin and Fianna Fáil have come out in favour of saying yes to the EU fiscal compact, Ó Cuív expressed grave doubts about it and indicated he would probably vote no.
He spent Saturday and Sunday at Fianna Fáil's annual gathering or ard fheis in Dublin looking rather sheepish after being slapped down by the party leader.
Martin went even further at the end of the ard fheis and warned that anyone from Fianna Fáil sharing an anti-EU platform would face internal party discipline.
Through the Ó Cuív row Martin has displayed grit and determination and, according to long term Fianna Fáil sources, secured his leadership as the party seeks to rebuild after its historic defeat in last year's general election.
Ard Fheis 2012 was the beginning of Fianna Fáil's resurrection from its near-death experience just over 12 months ago when it suffered its greatest loss of deputies and failed to win a seat in Dublin. But another resurrection – that of ghosts of its recent past – pose a problem for the party.
Brian Cowen, who was blamed for the disastrous terms of Ireland's international bail out, attended the conference. Some delegates gave him a rousing ovation which has gone down badly with a general public still bearing the brunt of austerity cuts and smouldering over the Irish bank rescue programme which has poured billions of euros into the country's poorly managed banks.
There were other reminders of Fianna Fáil's failings while in power. As party members filed into Dublin's RDS for the conference, hundreds of people also queued patiently to get into an exhibition held in the same venue for foreign companies and businesses looking for Irish workers to come and settle abroad. The lines of would-be migrants was a stark demonstration of the human face of 14.2% unemployment which led to the migration of 50,000 workers last year.
The final skull at the Fianna Fáil banquet could be the most damaging – the presence of Bertie Ahern. Fianna Fáil's Tony Blair, the young, energetic, ideologically neutral leader who delivered a hat trick of election victories for Ireland's one time number one party now cuts a divisive figure. He still has core supporters who adore him but there are many in the party high command who now regard him as an electoral liability. Ahern too gets much of the blame for the wasted years of the Celtic Tiger when the property boom was allowed to get out of control and the economy to overheat to danger-level.
Ahern's defenders will point out that he achieved a great deal in office and, most crucially of all, established enough trust and confidence with unionists (first with David Trimble and later Ian Paisley) to persuade them into an historic compromise in the north with republicans. Even Paisley himself has repeatedly stated that Ahern played a critical role in demonstrating good faith to the unionist community and keeping his word when he promised that Sinn Féin would start supporting the police and the justice system in Northern Ireland.
Yet even his greatest fans cannot ignore the potential danger his legacy poses. Within the next few weeks a major report on political corruption in Dublin will be published. It is expected that the Mahon Report, which started of by investigating corrupt practices between politicians and property speculators in North County Dublin, will be critical of Ahern's personal finances. The report will also question the validity of the evidence Ahern gave at the Mahon Tribunal. There may even be, according to the same Fianna Fáil sources, major criticism of the way he used funds donated by businessmen to support the party.
In its existential struggle to stave off a threat from Sinn Féin, riding high in recent opinion polls ahead of Fianna Fáil, Martin may need to pick another even more significant one from the scrap he seems to won with De Valera's grandson. Martin may have to give the Ahern legacy a good kicking in order to create critical distance between New Fianna Fáil and a party perceived for so long as being in the pockets of an avaricious nexus of bankers, builders and speculators.