Miriam Lord's Week

Gogo at it again; Dáil ditties; meddling Ministers; preachy Green; leaflet lapse?; Inda's worries; under-par deputies

PAUL GOGARTY is at it again. The latest episode happened during a meeting of the education committee – Gogo is chairman. Clearly, he takes his role very seriously.

Too seriously, for some.

“He’s a dictatorial so‘n’so,” fumed Fine Gael’s Ulick Burke after Thursday’s session, when Gogo publicly took him to task for speaking over his allotted two minutes. “His behaviour was totally off the wall.”

The meeting was examining the primary school curriculum and a number of teachers’ groups – including the INTO and the Primary School Principals’ Association – were in attendance. At the start, Gogarty informed the meeting that he was allowing three-four minutes’ speaking time to each delegation and two minutes to everyone else. When Fine Gael’s Ulick Burke continued speaking after being told his time was up, Gogarty suddenly declared he was “suspending the meeting for 20 seconds”. As the perplexed primary teachers watched on, he jumped up, marched down to poor Ulick and loudly chastised him before returning to his chair.

“I was about 10 seconds over time when he tapped on his glass once or twice and told me to wind up, which is what I was doing. I was talking about the transition from primary to secondary school, but before I knew anything, he had suspended the meeting,” recalled Burke. “He came rushing down and the finger was flipping at me like a drake’s wing. He said: ‘I have you timed and you ignored me three times when I rang the bell.’ He started pointing at his BlackBerry, on which he had apparently been timing me: ‘Do you see this? Do you see this?’ I turned my back on him because I was afraid I might flip like him . . . It was obvious I was fuming, but out of courtesy to the delegations I didn’t want to start a row inside the public hearing.”

Shortly afterwards, the committee went into private session and a number of members told their chairman that his behaviour had been unacceptable. Burke, produced a copy of the standing orders and informed the colourful deputy for Dublin Mid West that his initial declaration and subsequent actions were out of the range of normal standing orders.

We hear that Gogo apologised to his colleagues, including TDs Ruairí Quinn, Fergus O’Dowd, Tom McEllistrim and John O’Mahoney, and Senators Seán Ryan and Fidelma Healy-Eames. However, given that the outburst took place in public, a private apology was not deemed acceptable.

We understand that the committee chairman may make a public apology at the next meeting in two weeks.

“I told him a few home truths,” said Burke. “And I wouldn’t mind, but the chairman held everyone else up on Thursday because he was over 15 minutes late for the meeting.” Gogo is lucky that the politicians were pronouncing on his performance. Had it been the teachers, he’d still be in the bold corner.

Harmony restored

Wednesday afternoon in Leinster House and the caterwauling is worse than usual. There’s an ear-splitting racket coming from the vicinity of the audio-visual room. It’s Mary O’Rourke. But she is not on her own – quite a few politicians are taking part in a “sing from scratch” session in support of National Choral Singing Week.

It is organised by choral conductor Liz Powell, who has promised to bring them through “a series of physical and vocal warm ups and teach them a song or two (with harmonies)” in just 20 minutes.

Fianna Fáil’s Tom Kitt, chairman of the arts and sports committee, invited Liz and her tuning fork to come along and restore some of the harmony missing from Irish politics.

She guaranteed “people will come away singing, smiling and feeling good!” They could do with a bit of that around Kildare Street, where the prevailing atmosphere is more poisonous than the Hungarian sludge spill.

National Choral Singing Week is run by the Association of Irish Choirs in conjunction with Mental Health Ireland and aims to spread the message that group singing is good for your mental health.

Any sign of the Taoiseach? Sounds right up his street. He likes a song. Anything that lightens the mood around Leinster House has to be welcome. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are finding it increasingly difficult to sing from their party hymn sheets. And John Gormley’s attempt to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony was received with thinly disguised disdain by all. Never mind. Kitt was joined at the singing session by deputies Michael Ahern, Chris Andrews, Áine Brady, Seán Connick, Frankie Feighan and David Stanton.

Mary O'Rourke joined in with gusto, although she may not be pleased to hear that some said her enthusiastic efforts were "a howl". After their 20 -minute vocal workout, the politicians were able to belt out Stand by Mein perfect hamony, with Mammy O'Rourke's spirited do-wopping singled out for special mention. Nobody turned up from the Labour Party. They're perfect enough already.

Women? No, just the wives

The controversial HSE training fund and the fascinating Siptu account it spawned continues to entertain. The Siptu account – over €2 million from the Skills programme budget found its way into it and bought a lot of fancy meals and juicy foreign trips – was called “a slush fund” by Fine Gael’s Jim O’Keeffe in the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.

RTÉ's Ingrid Miley, who exposed the HSE internal report on the fund, told Morning Irelandhow she asked an informed source (male) if any women had gone on these exotic trips. "Eh, no," came the reply. "Only the wives." Why isn't that a surprise?

Outside the bubble

At last Thursday’s Fianna Fáil National Councillors Forum meeting in Leinster House, it was decided to hold a national conference in Tullamore next month to address the many issues of concern to the party’s hardworking local reps. “In addition to discussing local government matters, we intend to examine the state of the Fianna Fáil party, and in particular, the lack of communication with us from Government Ministers,” one county councillor told us, adding they were also unhappy about “the Green tail wagging the FF dog and the lack of any fightback to the Opposition”.

At last year’s conference, councillors complained that headquarters in Dublin was allowed to take over and stage manage the running of the meeting. “Ministers trooped in and gave us the usual auld drivel as to how good they are. Our views, as elected councillors, were completely ignored.”

This time, the forum executive says it will control the conduct of the proceedings, and the invited Ministers “will sit in the audience and listen to what the real world of politics is like on the ground for councillors and their constituents”. The local representatives were united in their view that both their ministers and deputies are “living in a bubble”.

Not surprisingly, the Green Party came in for a lot of stick at the meeting, but the recurring theme of the night was the anger felt by Fianna Fáil’s local representatives at what they feel is the dismissive and arrogant attitude that Ministers display towards them.

“What really gets us is the lack of courtesy shown by Ministers when they come into our constituencies to make announcements, but they don’t even notify us of their presence and we have to read about it in the local newspaper. There’s just a total disconnect between them and us.”

Altared state

Senator Mary White informed the Seanad on Wednesday that she preached her first church sermon a couple of Sundays ago.

“At the Augustinian church in Drogheda, I had the honour of being invited by Fr Iggy O’Donovan to give the sermon at a celebration of positive ageing week. For Senators who may not be aware, Fr O’Donovan supports allowing women to become priests,” Mary said. “More than 500 people were in the church that day.”

Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe was impressed: “I was very much taken with Senator White informing us she had been preaching from the pulpit last Sunday. Will she clarify if she is a candidate for the priesthood as well as for the presidency? No better woman.”

Missed photo-op

The Taoiseach put in a busy day around Laois yesterday, taking in 10 engagements along the way and pounding the pavements with the sort of zeal normally reserved for a general election canvass. He visited three schools in the morning, but decided not to do his pre-lunchtime interview at one of them, although a backdrop of winsome tots – Ireland’s future etc – is not to be sneezed at.

Instead, for reasons unknown, the venue for the press opportunity was a sewerage works.

Biffo arrived late, but an aide promised waiting journalists that he would be with them soon. “He’ll do the tour first, but it’s very smelly in there so he won’t be long.”

In the event, only a couple of photographers ventured inside and there followed a hilarious game of cat and mouse as the Taoiseach and his people tried to avoid having him pictured beside any embarrassing signs.

He spotted the big “Hot Air!” notice on a large pipe. “Go on, lads. Out ya get!” called a good humoured Cowen.

But the snappers had another sign in their sights. Sadly, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t capture our leader standing under the tantalising “Sludge and Effluent Discharge”. In Portlaoise, he threw caution to the wind and allowed local deputy Seán Fleming to drag him into Feighery’s butcher shop, even though it’s in “Bull Lane”. What’s the jackpot this week? It won’t make a dent in the deficit.

He walked the entire main street in Abbeyleix, going into frock shops and sweetie shops and tea shops. In fact, the only premises he didn’t visit was the famous Morrissey’s pub.

The staff came out to greet him instead.

Association airbrushed

Some eyebrows raised in Kilkenny this week when John McGuinness’s latest leaflet dropped through letterboxes. Constituents scanned the glossy little production, but could find no reference to Fianna Fáil on it. The picture on the leaflet is the same one that McGuinness features on his website, except for the FF logo in the bottom right hand corner. That’s gone now.

Given that there were whispers that the maverick McGuinness might consider running as an Independent in the general election, the absence of Fianna Fáil from his leaflet set tongues wagging. “I’d say it was an oversight. It wasn’t deliberate,” John told us.

Meanwhile, he tells us his much-awaited book will be launched in Kilkenny’s Stone House Books on November 6.

There’s a lot of jostling for position in Carlow-Kilkenny politics at the moment. It is widely expected that Carlow-based MJ Nolan will shortly announce his intention to step down. Fianna Fáil has not yet held a selection convention but rumours are that the search is on for a Carlow candidate to replace him. Cllr Jennifer Murnane O Connor is said to be the front-runner. Labour is apparently considering adding a second candidate. At their convention in May, delegates chose the Graiguenamanagh-based Cllr Ann Phelan and hope she’ll win back the seat they failed to retain in 2007, when Séamus Pattison stepped down. However, local sources say private polling shows Phelan should be comfortably elected and now the focus is on finding a running mate for her.

Let’s talk consensus

The Greens would have us believe that their sudden conversion to consensus politics was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Party leader John Gormley said yesterday that he mooted the idea of all-party talks without discussing it with the Taoiseach because a journalist had asked him a particular question.

Nobody is buying that. Not least because Eamon Ryan rose from his sickbed yesterday morning (lots of honey) to deliver the same message on Morning Ireland. He was so determined to get the line out that he approached Q102/UTV radio’s Eileen Brophy in Leinster House the previous evening and offered himself for interview. (An unusual occurrence, to say the least, for our media-managed Minister.) And what was so urgent for him to say? Ryan wanted all-party talks and a consensus approach . . .

This sudden outbreak of togetherness in the national interest was being dismissed in political circles as “attention seeking” by the Greens, who want to flag that they are not the same as their Fianna Fáil partners.

“Some people take out full page newspaper ads – the Greens took the cheaper option,” sniffed a senior FFer.

Biffo’s four-year lock-in

Enda Kenny was disturbed by the Fianna Fáil’s attempts to get his party to agree to “lock-in” the Government’s four-year plan for the economy. He told the Taoiseach as much during Leaders’ Questions.

Biffo, looking for a four year lock-in? You can see why Inda was worried.

Honouring Earley

The inaugural Oireachtas, Army, Garda and media golf challenge for the Dermot Earley Memorial Trophy was held last month at The Curragh Golf Club. The all-party team from the Oireachtas triumphed by two shots over a very strong Army selection. Lieut Gen Dermot Earley – the former Defence Forces Chief of Staff and Roscommon footballing great – died in June following a short illness. The event was preceded by an opening ceremony, where his wife Mary was presented with a replica of the Galway Crystal trophy which was sponsored by the late Lieut Gen Earley’s friend, John Murphy from Roscommon.

Many of Dermot’s friends from the wider GAA community also teed off at his old club in his honour, but none of them were a match for the TDs and Senators. Wily Donie Cassidy, who is a leading light of the Oireachtas Golf Society, also managed to find himself playing alongside young Fianna Fáil Senator James Carroll, who is a scratch golfer and plays pitch and putt for Ireland at international level.

They turned in the best card of the day.

In his victory speech after dinner in the clubhouse, Donie paid tribute to Dermot Earley and said he was “an iconic figure within the Defence Forces, a tremendous sportsman and a truly outstanding Irishman”. The Oireachtas team was led by Fianna Fáil’s Tom Kitt and included John Flaherty, Captain of the Guard in Leinster House, deputies Michael Ahern (FF) Phil Hogan (FG), Brian Hayes (FG) and Jack Wall (Lab) and Senators James Carroll (FF) and Paddy Burke (FG).