Ambitious suck up for a seat on the convention

A NICE little contest is shaping up among Labour TDs and Senators for the party’s seven seats on the forthcoming constitutional convention.

Politicians who aren’t so keen on joining the review body – members will meet over eight consecutive weekends from next September – are being love-bombed by colleagues anxious to get their names in the frame. Begging emails and election pamphlets are flying around.

“People who wouldn’t look at me last week are sitting down beside me in the canteen and offering to buy tea. It’s very off-putting,” wailed one deputy.

Nominations for the seven positions close on Monday and voting takes place at Wednesday’s parliamentary party meeting. There will have to be losers, so the air of sweetness and light generated in the run-up to the ballot may have disappeared by the time the party holds its end-of-term barbecue the following day. More than sausages might be roasted.

Noses are already out of joint before a vote has been cast. Deputies and Senators got this message from on high yesterday: “The party leader has advised that deputy Alex White has accepted his nomination to lead the Labour delegation at the constitutional convention.” So now there are only six seats up for grabs. And those hopefuls who imagined Eamon Gilmore might choose them as leader must now get down and dirty on the hustings if they want to join the convention.

The anointing of Eamon’s white-haired boy has rattled the ranks of Labour’s ambitious. Particularly as Alex, as chairman of the Oireachtas finance committee, is also being talked up by some as the man best suited to chair the inquiry into the bank guarantee.

But it has horrified those Labour TDs hoping to pick up a ministry when Eamon gets around to a reshuffle. The big constitutional convention job was seen as a major indicator of whom he favours. Thursday’s barbecue may yet end up as the kerfuffle before the reshuffle.

We understand the candidates for the six remaining seats include deputies Joanna Tuffy, Ciara Conway, Anne Ferris, Aodhán Ó Riordáin, Robert Dowds, John Lyons and Michael McCarty; and Senators Aideen Hayden, Lorraine Higgins and Ivana Bacik.