Miriam Lord's week

Pat cracks the whip; Lee in the wilderness; Burton gets a history lesson; putting Willie on eBay; spoiling for a vote; shovelling up votes

ALL LEAVE has been cancelled in Fianna Fáil. Chief Whip Pat ‘Scary’ Carey has been going about his duties with some relish, and causing consternation in certain quarters as a result. Thanks to his hard work and that of his second in command, John Cregan, the confidence vote was carried on Wednesday by a margin of six.

Former junior minister Mary Wallace was among those hauled back from foreign climes to do her duty. She was reportedly very put out, as she had been in Rome with her husband and they were looking forward to an audience with the pope. But for Scary Carey even the pope cut no ice.

We hear the government jet was mentioned by the distraught deputy at one stage, but to no avail. She was forced to pack away her mantilla and return to Leinster House.

Another casualty of the Scary Carey regime was Bertie Ahern, whose cup isn’t exactly overflowing at the moment. Apparently, he was in New York when the call came, and, according to our spies, was to fly on to Washington DC for lunch with Hillary Clinton.

Like Wallace, he had to get home under his own steam. In Bertie’s case, this meant a substantial outlay on a ticket to secure a flight back in time for the Dáil vote. We hear he is not best pleased.

Nothing but office politics

Hell hath no fury like Soldiers of Destiny scorned, and the sight of the jubilant Fine Gaelers celebrating all week with George Lee had Fianna Fáilers in Leinster House in a right snit.

Some of them can hardly bring themselves to refer to the former broadcaster by name, while others mutter about impartiality in RTÉ. Jealousy might be something to do with it.

Now Fine Gael deputies are accusing the Government of sour grapes with the news that Lee still doesn’t have an office. He was assigned a room two buildings away in the Department of Agriculture’s Kildare House, but was instructed not to take it.

Were he to move there, Deputy Lee would be the only TD in the building – where a small handful of Senators have offices – isolated from the rest of his colleagues. We understand that deputy Shane McEntee has agreed to share his cramped room in the main building with George.

When contacted yesterday, Fine Gael chief whip Paul Kehoe confirmed that there is anger in the party over the way George Lee has been cast into the wilderness. “We won’t let him go over to Agriculture House, because that is no way to treat a new deputy.” Meanwhile, some Fine Gael deputies and supporters are viewing George’s arrival with a jaundiced eye. Their gloomy assessment: “Another car gone.”

Whose line is it anyway?

It is best never to tangle with Mammy O’Rourke, particularly on matters of historical accuracy. Labour’s Joan Burton discovered this to her cost on Wednesday.

Joan told the Dáil that voters had rejected the Government. “As Churchill said when referring to Neville Chamberlain: ‘In the name of God, go and go now.’ That is what the people of Ireland want.”

Mary was in like a shot. “Actually it was Leo Amery MP who said it. The deputy should get it right.”

Joan insisted: “Churchill used the quote as well.” Mary refused to budge: “It was Leo Amery.” Minister Noel Dempsey tried to get his speech under way, but the sniping continued.

The acting Ceann Comhairle had to shut them up. But it wasn’t over. Later:

Mary: “Before I begin, may I say to a previous speaker, Deputy Joan Burton, that when she chooses, she seems to tip her toe in history quite a bit. On three separate occasions I have heard her bring up this famous line spoken in the House of Commons and have told her that the person who spoke was Leo Amery . . . One might ask why it matters in this debate. I taught history for years and it jars me every time I hear the Deputy say this. Somebody gave the quote to her and she keeps on dragging it out of a recess in her high-up shrill mind.”

In any event, Mammy O’Rourke was right. During the famous Norway debate in the spring of 1940, Amery (a Tory MP) attacked Chamberlain and quoted Oliver Cromwell’s injunction to the rump parliament in 1653.“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” It marked the beginning of the end for Chamberlain.

We understand that certain members of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party are drawing lots to decide which of them will have to say the same to Biffo.

Take a hundred lines, Joan.

Willie out, but not down

A deluge of queries after last week’s column. Everyone asking the same question: “Was Willie put in?” They refer to Willie Crowley, an Independent candidate for Newbridge Town Council. People were very taken with his election slogan: “Put Willie In!” Unfortunately, Willie wasn’t put in last Saturday night. While Crowley came ninth on first preferences, he lost out on transfers and just failed to take one of the nine seats.

Willie was at something of a disadvantage. The Leinster Leader reported that due to a lack of funds, he could only stretch to 10 posters, although he was delighted that his catchy slogan gained so much attention.

Unfortunately, this led to the theft of 80 per cent of his posters on the weekend before the election, leaving just two to spread the message.

Willie has now popped up on eBay. The starting bid was €5 and following some frenzied bidding, it has been sold for a whopping €15.50.

The money was passed on to the indomitable Willie (he’s just come through a long battle with cancer), who has donated it to Newbridge Meals on Wheels.

While obviously disappointed, Willie is still standing and he plans to mount a second effort in 2014 after his maiden attempt to get in just fell short of the target.

O’Callaghan v Tubridy II

The local election in Dublin’s Pembroke Ward was billed in some quarters as a showdown between two of RTÉ’s biggest names. It was O’Callaghan versus Tubridy – a rerun of the recent process to find a new presenter for the Late Late Show. This time though, the result was reversed.

While Jim O’Callaghan and Garrett Tubridy may have found it frustrating to be reminded at every hand’s turn of their celebrity siblings, it did them no harm in the name-recognition and media exposure stakes.

In the end, Jim (brother of Miriam) O’Callaghan took a seat for Fianna Fáil but party running mate Garrett (brother of Ryan) Tubridy failed to make it.

Heineken rugby tournament operations manager Garrett began his very slick, American-style campaign a year ago and attracted a lot of media attention. As a distaff member of the Andrews family, he could be described as Fianna Fáil old aristocracy, with cousins Barry and Chris sitting TDs.

A colleague bumped into Ryan in a southside hostelry the other night, who told him that Garrett’s transfers got Jim elected.

“Just like yourself – you got elected to the Late Late gig on transfers after Miriam was eliminated,” came the reply.

“Yes indeed,” smiled a philosophical Tubridy, “we always look after each other.”

No 1, or just number two?

When the destination of a seat hinges on one or two votes, the question of whether a ballot is spoiled or not becomes the subject of intense debate.

In Roscommon this week, it took a long time to complete the local election count because of the hours spent discussing spoiled votes. This lead to some reminiscing. One Fianna Fáil veteran recalling an incident involving the late Seán Doherty, when he was running for a seat in the Boyle electoral area.

There were five candidates at the time, with three seats up for grabs. One disgruntled voter decided he didn’t like the look of any of them. And so, instead of marking down numbers in his order of preference, he wrote one capital letter after each of the five names. From top to bottom, they read “S-H-I-T-E”. Cut and dried example of a spoiled vote, one would have presumed. Seán Doherty thought otherwise, and he argued the toss at length.

What some might take to be the letter “I” could be also be interpreted as the number one, he insisted. To bolster his case, he pointed out that there was no dot on the “I”.

The returning officer sent him away with a flea in his ear. But for Seán it was worth a try.

Dead cat bounce

Across the way in Longford, the irrepressible deputy Peter Kelly waxed nostalgic about the days he started out in politics. Then a busy undertaker/publican, he contested his first county council election back in 1985. He remembered calling to a house in Longford town, where he got a frosty reception from the woman of the house.

She launched into a tirade against politicians and then pointed to a dead cat on the road. “It wouldn’t be left lying outside any of your houses,” she complained. But she promised him a vote if he removed it, predicting she wouldn’t see him again.

So Peter went off, got a shovel and plastic bag and took the dead cat away. (We don’t know if he used the hearse, but we do know the animal was interred in a large pothole). He returned to the house, knocked on the door, the woman came out and he stood on the doorstep, smiling.

She looked at the road. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it’s gone!” she cried. “And there’s been five votes for me in that family ever since,” said Peter proudly. It’s the only proven example in the world of a dead cat bounce producing dividends.

For she’s a jolly big spender

Two big political birthdays this week. Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin joined most of her female parliamentary party colleagues on Wednesday for one of their regular nights out. Leinster House is a very male-dominated place, and the women like to get together occasionally away from the clubby confines of the Dáil bar.

The FF women (and Mary Harney) repaired across the road to Town Bar and Grill. They numbered about 10 and included Mary Coughlan, Margaret Conlon, Mary O’Rourke, Beverly Flynn and Senator Ger Feeney. Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith also happened to be dining there that night, in the company of IFA president Padraig Walshe. When they saw the battalion approaching, the two of them cowered in an alcove.

At the end of the evening, Hanafin said she would pay the bill for the sake of convenience and the others could settle up with her afterwards. But once it was paid, she announced it was her 50th birthday and she wanted to celebrate it quietly with her friends. Despite noisy objections, she insisted on picking up the tab.

The other birthday was in Longford, where former taoiseach Albert Reynolds’s right-hand man, Mickey Doherty, celebrated his 80th. Peter Kelly (he of the dead cat bounce) was among family and friends at a celebratory lunch yesterday.

Mickey told us he’s given up politics, and the only thing he fears now is “endin’ up in hell”. Peter, an undertaker by profession, said he’d make sure that wouldn’t happen.

The assembled company remembered the time Doherty – trying to explain the absence of taoiseach Albert at the general election count centre in Longford – declared his man had to go to Dublin for a crucial meeting with the minister for finance.

This was picked up by the markets and a penny was subsequently knocked off the value of the pound.

Yesterday, among other things, the bould Mickey was toasted as the man who caused a run on the currency in 1992.