Nelson McCausland has accused Gerry Adams of being an absentee MLA (as opposed to an abstentionist MP). PA notes that besides having no ministerial responsibilities, he doesn’t sit on any Stormont committees. He certainly intends to be absent from Stormont today, when he will sit in the public gallery of Dail Eireann for the vote for the new taoiseach. Whatever the party had planned for the post general election, the party’s poor election performance has seen it all but buried in the flurry of media coverage of the Green/Fianna Fail deal. Certainly remaining so detached from the machinery of government cannot help him work on some of his own deficits that were shown up in so dramatically in the public debate.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty