Miriam Lord's week

A collection of articles by Miriam Lord

Abbey return for Michael D as he pauses to reflect before Aras move

AS THE preparations continue for Friday’s presidential inauguration, Michael D Higgins intends to steal away to Glenstal Abbey in Limerick for some rest and reflection.

“It’s one of his best-kept secrets,” said a friend yesterday. “Glenstal is where Michael D goes to contemplate and chill. He’ll be going there on a brief retreat before Friday and he intends to work on his speech while at the abbey.”

The President-elect has already moved out of his modest apartment in Dublin’s Mount Street. He will go straight to Áras an Uachtaráin after he is sworn in at Dublin Castle, but in the meantime he will stay in an apartment at the State-owned mansion, Farmleigh House.

Who’ll be on Friday’s guest list? Who won’t be there? And more to the point, will Gay Mitchell turn up?

Last night Michael D and his family were still finalising their personal list of guests. There is speculation that his good friend, actor Martin Sheen, has been invited. And if he can’t make it, there’ll be plenty of time for him to visit his pal in the West Wing of Áras an Uachtaráin, where he will have his living quarters.

The six defeated candidates have been invited. The Department of the Taoiseach compiled the official guest list.

Yesterday, a Government spokesperson was unable to confirm if all of them would be attending as the invitations only went out in recent days.

One would expect that Mitchell, who ran a rather unfortunate campaign, has recovered his spirits sufficiently to face a reunion with his defeated colleagues. Despite his outbreak of petulance when he didn’t show for the official declaration of the election result, Gay is a decent man.

The six should also expect an invite to lunch in the Áras with Michael D. After she became President in 1997, Mary McAleese hosted separate lunches for each of the vanquished candidates.

As for the President-elect, his campaign was over a year in the planning and he had been thinking of running for the Park for some time. However, it now seems his ambition began far earlier.

“I’ll be president of Ireland one day” he told his sister on the day he got married to Sabina Coyne.

Kathleen Lyons, who lives in Shannon, told a local journalist: “I remember when he got married and he was a senator. He told me: ‘I’ll be President of Ireland one day’. I remember him saying that to me and he probably doesn’t remember saying it himself.

“It was on his wedding day and we were all in a minibus going to the Herbert Hotel. I thought he was talking rubbish but look at him now. He definitely had ambitions back then,” said Kathleen.

“My mother would have been very very proud of him. She was very close to Michael and that’s probably where he got it from. She was always into the reading and current affairs,” she added.

We are minded of the 11-year-old Bertie Ahern.

The story goes that when he was in school, he wrote an essay called “Why I want to become Taoiseach.” Meanwhile, three counties are fighting over the rights to claim Michael D: born in Limerick, raised in Clare, living in Galway.

Shades of CJ Haughey there, who belonged to any number of counties.

Green is the colour this Christmas

WITH CHRISTMAS just around the corner, the books are flying in. Once upon a time, the fallback gift for fathers was a pair of socks – now it seems to be a political paperback.

My colleague Mary Minihan joins a crowded field this Wednesday evening when A Deal with the Devil: The Greens in Government is launched by former European president Pat Cox in the Hodges Figgis bookshop on Dawson Street in Dublin.

At the time of going to press, serial party joiner Pat was not a member of the Greens, but you’d never know – by Wednesday he could be launching a leadership heave against Eamon Ryan.

One little nugget from this latest addition to our growing collection of political bodice-rippers is the news that former Green minister of state Mary White used to write romantic yarns for Mills and Boon.

Meanwhile, earlier on Wednesday evening, the Taoiseach will be in the Hall of the Royal College of Surgeons to launch Just Garret, a new, revised edition of the best-selling autobiography of former taoiseach, the late Garret Fitzgerald’s best-selling autobiography.

Social network for ex-ministers

GOOD TO see some of our former ministers dipping a toe back into the workplace. A few have surfaced on the LinkedIn business network – it’s a sort of Facebook for suits.

Dermot Ahern is in the market.

“As a public representative for 32 years, I have built up a wide experience and body of contacts which I believe will assist parties, in dispute, to resolve their differences. Among many other issues, I was heavily involved in negotiations on the Irish Peace Process, at EU and UN level, and also putting together programmes for government . . .”

Former minister of state Dick Roche lists his specialities as “European affairs, public policy, public administration, administrative reform and public finance.” Since March, Dick has been a consultant on public policy current affairs with “The Skill Set – a Dublin based consulting collective that provides strategy and technology services to small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

It's more than the McAleeses who are leaving

MARY AND Martin McAleese are the high-profile departures from Áras an Uachtaráin next week, but also leaving the Phoenix Park will be Gráinne Mooney, who has been the President’s communications officer for the last 14 years, and Maura Grant, who took over as presidential adviser from Eileen Gleeson seven years ago.

Communications consultant Wally Young was also drafted in to join Mrs McAleese’s private staff when events required.

“I was 26 when I came here” Gráinne said yesterday. “I feel like I’ve grown up in the Áras.”

She was working in the institute of professional legal studies at Queen’s University – Prof Mary McAleese was its director – when the newly elected President McAleese asked her to come down and join her staff.

“It’s been 14 great years: just a series of highlights. Obviously, the Queen’s visit was special. It was such a wonderfully historic event and to have been involved in it, to have seen history taking place before your eyes, was amazing.

“But I also think of the garden parties, the family days, the Christmas tree-lighting events, the Day of Welcomes on May 1st – so many good things. I’ll be very sad to be leaving this job, we’re like one big family and I had a brilliant President to work for.”

Gráinne has no definite plans for the future yet, apart from spending some time with her family. She lives on Dublin’s north side with her husband and two-year-old son, Ben.

“All good things must come to an end,” she said.

Michael D’s incoming staff will have “a huge learning curve ahead of them” but there will be plenty of support for them in the coming months as he settles in.

In thrilling debate on double accounting, MacSharry words echo down the years

APROPOS THAT €3.6 billion in loose change which fell down the back of a Department of Finance sofa, it’s not the first time the phenomenon of double accounting has been brought to the attention of a finance minister.

Back in 1987, during a thrilling debate on the Local Loans Funds Bill, the opposition finance spokesman – one Michael Noonan – raised this very issue with the then minister, Ray MacSharry.

It was bewildering back then and it’s bewildering now.

Deputy Noonan welcomed the Bill, noting it was a technical measure to bring about administrative improvements in the funding of local authorities.

“I would like to ask one question,” began Noonan. “I understand that in calculating the national debt there is an element of double counting when one takes the local loans fund into account. I wonder will this movement from a loans scheme to a grant scheme change the methodology of the arithmetic and will it eliminate some of the double counting in the area of the national debt?”

He demanded a detailed explanation from the minister on the matter of double accounting.

“We are perceived to owe enough already without artificially inflating that amount by double counting what the government lend to local authorities and what the local authorities owe,” said Michael.

Mac the Knife, as he was known, rose to the occasion. “I want first to deal with a very important point made by Deputy Noonan on the national debt and the elimination of the double counting and the fact that we have, at least on the face of it, reduced the amount that we are supposed to owe, or are perceived to owe. It does not change the overall liabilities we have.”

Noonan, nearly 25 years on, was singing a similar tune on Thursday.

But back to Mac: “Although, from a gross accounting point of view, this procedure may be technically correct, it means that the indebtedness of the exchequer is overstated . . . Following the change now proposed, the figure for the national debt will be reduced by about £1,600 million. It must be emphasised, of course, that this technical accounting adjustment to the national debt figure does not affect the real burden of the debt. The heavy cost of debt service on the budget is not affected in any way and the necessity for reducing public expenditure in order to stabilise the debt will be in no way diminished.” So, no joy back then either.

Michael Noonan persevered: “On the face of it, there is an overstatement of £4½ billion in the debt, because of the double counting.”

Ray MacSharry: “Not necessarily, because what we are doing here is not eliminating circular transfers . . . I could start to work it out now from the brief, but that would cause a delay of half an hour. I know the point the deputy is making.”

Noonan tried again: “Would the minister not agree that the change would help the GNP national debt ratio to get into equilibrium?”

Ray MacSharry: “That is not the purpose of the exercise because it does not change the situation overall. The situation is that we still owe the money.”

Michael was determined to remain cheerful: “It’s nice to be getting side benefits from this.” Mac the Knife wasn’t so sure: “If they are there, we shall all welcome them.” And there you have it. Plus ca change.

Hope that explains everything to your satisfaction.

Excuse me.

I have to go for a lie down now.

Presidential campaign honours list

Best quote: This goes to Fine Gael TD Billy Higgins, who came from nowhere in the closing stages and narrowly pipped Seán Gallagher for the honour.

Billy was on Morning Ireland last Thursday discussing his party’s abysmal showing in the election. “Certainly, there are always lessons to be learned, but in politics, one is very conscious of, you know, cock rooster today, feather duster tomorrow . . .”

During the campaign, Gallagher was asked about when he decided to launch a tilt at the presidency. Newstalk presenter Chris Donoghue remarked that most of us have big ambitions but we tend not to see them through: for example, he once dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

Mr Positivity solemnly told him: “Nobody should die with their song still in them.” At which point, nobody would have died with their breakfasts still in them either.

Best Assassination Attempt: There are no entries in this category, despite Dana’s melodramatic efforts to classify a tyre blowout as a sinister murder bid.

Best Assassination: Martin McGuinness. On the Frontline debate, he looked into the whites of Gallagher’s eyes and clinically took him out of the presidential race.

Most misunderstood candidate: Gay Mitchell. He’ll have to go back to building buses on the mean streets of Inchicore now.

Best campaign slogan: Gay Mitchell for his groundbreaking “Yis are all a shower of dirty boll...” What? That wasn’t his slogan? Are you sure? Could have sworn it was.

The Nelson Mandela Award for Services to Name-dropping: Unfortunately, McGuinness cannot be here to accept it personally as he is in Hollywood with his best friend Peter Robinson drinking Manhattans with Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and the cast of Glee. Julian off the telly has come Down Here to accept it on his behalf.

Have you a message from Deputy First Minister McGuinness, Julian?

“And now on the UTV . . .” Normal service is resumed.

The “Are You All Practising Catholics?” Award: No. It doesn’t go to Dana, who asked that question of her sheepish rivals during one of the debates. The joint winners are all those television moderators who developed a strange religious fixation during the campaign. They were like priests conducting Catechism exams as they interrogated the terrified candidates on the subject of spirituality.

The Bill Cullen Award for Being an Entreprenooor: Not many people know this, but Seán “my life has been about enterprise” Gallagher is an entrepreneur. He preached about the “importance of having a president who is an entrepreneur”. Funnily enough, when you looked into the backgrounds of all seven candidates, most of them created more jobs in their time than the professional motivational speaker, Gallagher.

We’re awarding it to David Norris for creating the money-spinning Bloomsday, among other things.

The Photoshop award for digital enhancement: Mary Davis, for going a little too far with the airbrush on her election posters.

The Let Bygones be Bygones Award: This goes to Libertas founder Declan Ganley, who sent a solicitor’s letter to Labour’s campaign director Joe Costello, during the Lisbon Treaty referendum. When Michael D was elected, Declan magnanimously tweeted “not to forget to congratulate Joe Costello, a most effective campaign director. ‘The old dog for the long road and pups for the boreens’.”

The Bucket-o-Bukes award: Vincent Browne, dramatically puncturing McGuinness’s claims that he left the IRA in the 1970s by producing from beneath his desk book after book alleging the contrary.

Bin There Done That Medal for Brass Neck: Seán Gallagher, for grabbing the high moral ground by not putting up posters on lampposts while sticking his face on glossy adverts on rubbish bins in shopping centres all over the country.

The Matt Talbot Award for Self-Restraint and Willpower: It’s all right, Michael D, you’ve won now. You can talk again and again and again and again . . .

Special Merit Badge for Spin-doctoring: Richard Moore, former press adviser to Dermot Ahern and others, who nearly got Gallagher all the way to Áras an Uachtaráin and saw his man finish an impressive second.

Last Friday morning, when it became clear that Michael D had won, the affable Moore was asked by the Pat Kenny Show to join a panel discussion. He headed to the Gallagher headquarters on St Stephen’s Green to find a quiet corner to take their call.

The place was closed.

So he went across to the green and found a tranquil spot near the duck pond. While waiting on the line for his segment to begin, a family of noisy mallards began quacking furiously behind him. As Kenny introduced him, the perspiring spin-doctor was beating his way to the back of the shrub border.

Richard did an excellent interview and listeners had no idea that the man calmly discussing strategy on the radio with Pat was, in fact, lurking in the middle of a large bush, mortified, and getting deeply suspicious looks from passersby.

Most chilling threat by a candidate: Martin McGuinness was front runner for his Frontline performance until last Sunday, when Michael D did a radio interview at lunchtime. He insisted he hadn’t been under orders to keep his mouth shut during the campaign. (He can go on sometimes, it would be fair to say.) Anyway, said Michael D, in the likes of South America, people would be up in arms if you arrived to make a speech and didn’t talk for at least an hour.

We’re bringing our sleeping bags to the inauguration.