In spring 2019, the numbers staying in emergency accommodation topped 10,000 for the first time.
Eoghan Murphy was minister for housing and had been in the job for less than two years. It was a seismic moment for the country and for him. The 10,000, he has written in his newly published memoir, Running From Office, was “a symbolic figure in terms of capturing my failure in the job. I picked up the phone to one of my brothers and asked him for help. It was time to resign.”
Reading that passage, even as a seasoned political observer, is an eyebrow-arching moment. What is more astonishing is what happens next. Murphy had planned to give the taoiseach his resignation letter and go “straight to the airport to escape abroad, leaving the fallout behind”.
He then found out his ex-girlfriend, with whom he had recently broken up, was pregnant. His exit plan was put on hold. For two weeks they came back together, but scans revealed the foetus was unviable. They split up again immediately.
“I wasn’t capable of processing it,” he writes. “And it all just crashed down on top of me. So I selfishly went away to bury it all as deep down as I could. I drank for a week, recklessly, stupidly.”
The subtitle of the book is Confessions of Ambition and Failure in Politics.
Murphy’s account of his failures (and failings) as minister for housing is candid, unforgiving, unfiltered, and utterly brutal. So much so that at times, you feel like covering your eyes.
Today, Murphy is at the other end of a video link. With a neatly trimmed beard, he looks fit, healthy and relaxed. He is in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he has been since early September as head of the OSCE election observation mission. This work has taken up much of his time since leaving politics. He loves it, he says. It is political. But it is not politics.
It’s a far cry from the nadir of 2018 and 2019. In the book he describes his difficulties sleeping and how he went “prescription shopping” for sleeping pills “because one doctor would never give me enough”.
He was hypersensitive to criticism, was racked with anxiety before any broadcast interview, would brood for months on even the smallest slight against him. He was consumed with guilt for not staying true to his values and becoming (in some ways) the politician he never wanted to be. He cried effusively when he told then taoiseach Leo Varadkar in 2020 that he no longer wanted to be a minister. At one of his lowest moments, during a trip to London, he got up in the middle of the night, went outside the flat where he had lived as a student, cried his eyes out, and then manically ran through the rain-sodden streets for hours. “I had let the criticisms bite too hard. I was panicking. I just couldn’t face it any more.”
[ Running From Office by Eoghan Murphy: a fine memoir built on a flimsy political career ]
What happened to the idealistic young man whose rise reflected that of a new generation in Fine Gael under Varadkar? What happened to the man who led the “Five-a-side group” of backbenchers in Fine Gael and who pushed a reform agenda with the leadership? What happened to the junior minister who performed so well that Michael Noonan tipped him as a future minister for finance? What happened to the chief architect of Varadkar’s leadership campaign?
The unravelling of all that occurred in the relatively short time he was minister for housing. All through his career as a politician, there was self-doubt and uncertainty. It came to a head in those three turbulent years.
“There were some big mistakes or missteps that I made early on in housing. If I had done them properly, things might have happened more quickly and people might have more faith in what I was trying to do. People need to understand you have a plan … but I wasn’t able to come out with my plan.”
[ Eoghan Murphy: Influential figure who was still deemed a ‘rising prospect’Opens in new window ]
Early on Murphy wanted the housing situation to be declared an emergency (over-riding planning laws to get houses built quickly) and for the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) to have a role. He saw how effectively and quickly the State apparatus adjusted and adapted when there were other emergencies such as big weather events and Covid. But proposals were batted back. He and his advisers thought the ambitious targets in Rebuilding Ireland were not nearly achievable and would make him a hostage to fortune. The problem was, he could not come up with a cohesive alternative. There were big initiatives, for sure: the scrapping of the building height cap; the establishment of the Land Development Agency (now coming into its own); co-living (a bit of a disaster), and the first cost-rental homes. Home building started going in the right direction but other indicators did not.
Was the pressure such that he was heading towards a serious breakdown? “One of my big failures is that I didn’t manage my personal health properly.”
He says he did not want the book to be a standard political memoir but rather an honest account about his mistakes and their impact on him.
“I found it very cathartic when I was writing it because I was really getting to grips with it from a mental health point of view, because it had been such a difficult period. I did not manage myself well, and things just accumulated on top, combined with not sleeping and stomach issues.
Murphy did recover some of his mojo (a favourite Enda Kenny word) during 2019 and into 2020. But he still knew that he wanted to quit politics. “I didn’t really want to run in the 2020 election, but I felt if I resigned before the election, it would have been way too damaging for the party and for myself. I knew I was not staying afterwards and there was bad faith in that, I know.”
He retained his seat after a difficult campaign. A homeless man suffered life-changing injuries when a mechanical digger removed a tent from the canal when he was sleeping in it. A poster of Murphy happened to be hanging nearby. He ended up being blamed by association. At the count centre he was confronted and chanted at by angry mobs.
Fine Gael had a bad election and, momentarily, Murphy reconsidered his decision to quit because the party was going into opposition. But when government beckoned, it signalled the exit for him. That led to the tearful meeting with Varadkar where he said he wanted out.
“I was just desperate to get out of the public eye. I really did not enjoy the attention that came with that, and it had really limited my world, to my workplace and my home.” He could not go to cafes or public places any more because it inevitably led to hostile confrontations. “It was now [at a stage] where I was questioning myself, and I was feeling like everything was attacked.”
When he left politics, he figured he had to be gone-gone. “I knew if I needed to kind of get back to myself, I needed to get away for a while. That was part of the plan.”
He went wholly off grid. “I went off all social media when I left Ireland. I didn’t delete my Twitter, but I just haven’t been in it. When I tweeted about the book coming out, I did the tweet and I deleted the app again.
“I don’t follow the politics … I wasn’t going to hang around or try to keep a toe in.”
Life is in London now. He has headed election observation missions in Uzbekistan, Armenia, Italy and Georgia. He travels to Wales to do mountain running when he can. He is content. He stresses he has no regrets about his 12 years in politics.
“I loved my time in politics, in the round,” he says. “It was a fantastic experience. It’s a great job and a huge privilege. Towards the end I basically got burnt out, and came to the end of my tether. I was very happy when I left. I’m very happy being a private citizen.”
The book, which took him six months to write, was a necessary part of that.
“This book isn’t about me trying to get back into politics or be a commentator. I just wanted to write it as a kind of final contribution, and leave it at that, continue along the way I’m going.”
Running From Office: Confessions of Ambition and Failure in Politics is published by Eriu, £16.99
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