MIRIAM LORD'S WEEK

FG’s MEP candidates avoid hissy fits; Newstalk show aims to be successor to ‘Scrap Saturday’; Gormley may turn on Japanese at conference and Seanad debate proves tiring

BARRING THE late arrival by parachute of a card-carrying celebrity, Kilkenny Senator John Paul Phelan will join outgoing MEP Mairéad McGuinness on the Fine Gael election ticket for Ireland East.

A number of meetings were held by party strategists this week in advance of the selection convention in Kildare on March 29th, where it is almost certain that the 30-year-old career politician from Mullinavat will get the nod to run.

“I’m more than willing to run for the party. I think it’s a great opportunity and one I would relish,” says John Paul, who, while not counting his chickens, sounds like a man ready for the fray.

In 2004, Mairéad McGuinness and Avril Doyle scored a memorable double at the polls – a success due in part to their highly entertaining public rivalry.

We understand that Avril, who is not running in June, has giving her blessing to Phelan. (As only Avril could.) Unfortunately, John Paul says that he “gets on okay” with Mairéad, so it’s unlikely we’ll get a repeat of the marvellous displays of one-upwomanship and hissy fits that helped the two formidable Fine Gael women get to Brussels.

Eligible bachelor Phelan, who first entered the Seanad in 2002 as its youngest member, thinks the party has an excellent chance of retaining its two seats. “With a male and female candidate, based at either end of the region – the geographical and gender representation would be very good. The age profiles are different too.” Age? Did you hear that, Mairéad? We sense the first row coming on. . .

FG fixes it for Phil’s 21st

One man who will be giving all the support he can to young Senator Phelan is Big Phil Hogan, Fine Gael fixer supreme and TD for Carlow–Kilkenny. Phil has been keeping a close eye on John Paul’s rise through the local ranks, and doubtless, he will be more than happy to help his colleague on to the plane should he win the battle for that last seat in Ireland East.

You don’t survive for over 20 years in the Oireachtas without knowing a thing or two about politics. Tonight in Kilkenny’s Newpark hotel, 600 supporters will gather to celebrate Hogan’s political 21st. Organised by his constituency organisation, guests will include party leader Enda Kenny, former taoiseach John Bruton, former minister Ivan Yates, Brian Hayes, Charlie Flanagan and the former ceann comhairle and Labour TD Séamus Pattison.

The mood should be buoyant, given the party’s current standing in the polls. And everyone will be nice to Phil, who is expected to land a big job in cabinet if Fine Gael gets back into power.

Room for ‘Emergency’

It might not be top of the Government's wish list, but in these gloomy times, it would be nice to see a return to the airwaves of a radio programme along the lines of RTÉ's late, lamented, Scrap Saturday. Scrap Saturday, as older readers will know, mercilessly lampooned Charlie's Haughey's government, irritating the political establishment no end and cheering up a disgruntled and down at heel populace.

Now, the brave people at Newstalk have decided to take the plunge with a new, half-hour weekly political satire show, which will air every Saturday morning in the old Scrap Saturday11.30am slot.

The show will be launched in Doheny Nesbitt’s pub on Wednesday night, just around the corner from Leinster House.

The Emergency is described as "an up to the minute sketch show, in the tradition of Hall's Pictorial Weekly, Scrap Saturdayand Spitting Image– without the puppets . . . No one will be safe as all sides of the political divide and the shady cabals in our midst are exposed and lampooned." The cast of characters in the promising pilot excerpts we heard includes Brian Cowen, Mary Harney, de Valera, David McWilliams, Miriam O'Callaghan, Vincent Browne and George Hook, among others.

Six experienced writers and performers form The Emergencyteam – Morgan Jones, Joe Taylor, Eoin Byrne, Dermot Carmody, Karen Ardiff and Nick McGiveney.

“We want it to be edgy and we think that it will to ruffle a few feathers,” Newstalk’s new chief executive, Frank Cronin, said yesterday. “People are crying out for a show like this. In times of recession, good political satire thrives.” He hopes the show will run and run, or at least until “the Government or the High Court orders us to stop”. That sounds promising.

Chinese whispers

The big question at the Green Party national conference in Wexford this weekend is: Will Mr Liu Bewei return? And if he isn’t on the scene, who will John Gormley insult during his leader’s address tonight? Readers will remember how the Chinese ambassador to Ireland walked out in the middle of John’s speech last year in protest at remarks he made about China’s human rights record in Tibet. It was all very exciting, and did wonders for Gormley’s street cred with the delegates.

As of last night, 20 top-flight diplomats had accepted the party’s invitation to attend their annual conference. No confirmation, as yet, from the Chinese ambassador.

If all else fails, Gormley can always insult the Japanese ambassador – he’s down to attend – over his country’s whaling policy. That should go down equally well with the rank and file.

Hot air in Seanad

Veteran Fianna Fáil politician Senator Terry Leyden does not shirk his responsibilities when it comes to raising matters of grave national importance in the Upper House. “Yesterday, I was obliged to inflate two of the tyres on my car,” he declared on Thursday.

David Norris was first in with the obvious solution. “You should have tried blowing into them.” As a result of his harrowing experience, Terry now wants the Tánaiste to come into the Seanad and discuss the work of the National Consumer Agency.

While he spoke, there was a lot of pretend puffing and blowing from his grinning colleagues.

Choosing to ignore the giggles, the loquacious Leyden ploughed on, begging the chair’s indulgence so he could finish his story.

Indeed, suggested Terry, it might benefit the chair to listen, as “at some point, he could undergo an experience similar to that which I endured yesterday.” It seems he drove his car along Dublin’s south Quays on Wednesday and stopped at three filling stations all the way up to Palmerstown, “but none of them had in place facilities to allow me inflate the tyres on my car”.

Senator Eugene Regan wondered why he didn’t take matters into his own hands: “You’re all hot air.” Terry carried on: “I am amazed that the people of Dublin don’t complain about the fact they cannot inflate the tyres on their cars at filling stations. In Castlecoote, the village in which I reside, it is possible to inflate the tyres on your car without charge.” Senator Jerry Buttimer said: “You could have blown air into the tyres yourself.” Senator Leyden said he would overlook such jibes because he had a very serious point to make.

“You’re a bit of a windbag” added Jerry, by way of explanation. “I’ve lodged a complaint with the agency in respect of this matter,” sniffed Terry, who successfully organised a monster breakfast in Leinster House last December in support of the Irish pork and bacon industry. Maybe he should lay off the rashers and sausages for a while, considering how much pressure his tyres seem to be under.

Martin’s minister curse

We reported last year how two Georgian foreign affairs ministers were sacked within days of meeting their Irish counterpart.

The curse of the Irish Foreign Minister struck again this week after Micheál Martin’s recent visit to Cuba. Photographs of him shaking hands with a smiling Felipe Perez Roque are still fresh in the mind, but Felipe is an ex-minister now.

He resigned on Monday along with Carlos Lage, secretary of the Cuban Council of Ministers. On Tuesday, former president Fidel Castro accused the men of “unworthy behaviour” and ambitions that made them succumb to “the honey of power.” In his resignation letter, Perez Roque said: “I fully recognise that I committed errors,” adding “I assume full responsibility for them.” However, neither men apologised for whatever they are supposed to have done.

No reasons for the departures have come to light, other than intimations by Castro that the two men had been angling for leadership roles. Maybe the two would feel more at home in Irish politics.

Cullen’s flying form

Houston, we’ve got a problem! That’s right. Kamikaze Cullen, who didn’t fall out of an Army helicopter on Monday when the door blew off, is representing Ireland in Houston, Texas on St Patrick’s Day.

He will be marching in the parade, where we confidently expect he will be savaged by an Irish wolfhound if he insists on marching up front with the mascot. He will not be travelling economy, which brings to mind a story we heard from a reader who has just returned from a holiday in Egypt. When taking an internal flight from Cairo to Luxor last week, he glanced out the window and saw two men hurriedly rolling a red carpet up to the steps of the plane. Then a man in a smart suit, accompanied by two bodyguards, walked briskly across the tarmac and boarded. He sat in business class, along with the paying passengers.

“There was no fuss at all. The flight wasn’t delayed and we got away on time. Afterwards, I found out that the passenger was Ahmed Nazif, prime minister of Egypt. Why can’t our politicians do that?”

But back to Cullen, who will meet the Houston Chronicle editorial board while in Texas. “You are the rat catchers and sewer cleaners of society” he should tell them, echoing the wise words of Senator Eoghan Harris in the Seanad on Tuesday.

Kamikaze will discover how people can stick a stetson anywhere if they’re angry enough.

He will then limp on to the International Cruiseliner Conference in Miami “to consolidate cruise liner business at Irish ports, worth an estimated €145 million annually.” It might be wise to keep him away from the lifeboats. If he is lucky to have any spare time, he might even bump into some space cadets from Fás. They like Florida. Worth every penny.

Ahern hunts Rabbitte

Paul Gogarty of the Greens had another episode on Wednesday night in the Dáil, when his mind turned to thoughts of the Fine Gael leader.

“Does Deputy Kenny sleep soundly at night? Divil a bit of it. He dreams vivid dreams, and in those dreams he is already taoiseach – ‘I’m Enda. I’m the taoiseach. I’m the gaffer.’ He snores like a lion but when he wakes up, the lion fades and disappears. What pops out instead? A mouse – a mouse that is afraid to do the right thing.” Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern went a bit animal crackers too on Wednesday. Since he got the portfolio, he has been engaged in trench warfare with Labour’s justice spokesman, Pat Rabbitte. It can get very nasty at times.

During the Order of Business, Pat asked the Taoiseach about the collapse of a court case involving a man in Dundalk who was found in possession of €1.8 million worth of heroin and cocaine.

As the Ceann Comhairle repeatedly ruled him out of order, Ahern couldn’t resist getting involved. “Deputy Rabbitte should put back on his pink costume!” he heckled. “He probably doesn’t remember the pink costume!”

Turns out that Ahern found out that Pat, when running for president of UCG Students’ Union, dressed up in a pink rabbit costume during his campaign.

We hope he didn’t hear that delicious nugget from any members of the Labour Party.

Meanwhile, photographs of Pat in his pink wabbit suit should be sent to this newspaper immediately.

Zombie ardfheis

Our hero of the week is David Davin-Power, RTÉ’s comfortingly authoritative political correspondent, who performed above and beyond the call of duty at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis last weekend. DDP, as he is known, went live as usual on the 9 O’Clock News after the leader’s address. As he spoke, he was surrounded by FF supporters, standing silently beside him, staring.

It was most disconcerting. Poor David looked like he had stumbled into a nest of zombies. One of them fell down suddenly while DDP was speaking. But nobody said a word, they all stood there, staring, just staring. The man who fell down stood up again, but he was back to front this time. He swivelled around quickly.

We understand the doughty political reporter had requested, and been promised that stewards would be on hand to make sure he could broadcast unhindered. They never showed. Maybe the zombies got them.

David never lost his composure and remained professional until the end. He was RTÉ’s Northern editor at the height of the Troubles. It’s an experience which stood to him on Saturday.

Above everything that happened in a busy political week, the episode of DDP and the zombies of Cowen – it’s become a hit on the internet – was the talk of Leinster House.