Search for a wise man will be conducted outside the House

DAIL SKETCH:AT LEAST this Government is beginning to recognise its limitations.

The search for a “wise man or woman” to oversee their inquiry into the banking system will not be conducted in house.

Oh, thank God.

They’d never get started otherwise. (Although that’s what they wanted, if truth be told.) Apart from that shred of comfort, the unhappy reality is that Brian Cowen is running a Pedigree Chum government. No matter how great the plan or how good the intention, they manage to turn almost everything they touch into a complete dog’s dinner.

But even by their own dismal standards, yesterday took the Bonio.

How long have they had to come up with a decent wheeze to inquire into the banking system in a way which will quell the restless natives and silence the Opposition? Where has Fianna Fáil’s native cunning gone?

And so, back from the Christmas holidays after plenty of time to put the finishing touches to the details of their banking inquiry, Biffo’s administration is mired in controversy yet again.

John Gormley got the ball rolling in the morning with a disastrous appearance on the Pat Kenny show when he tried to defend the reasoning behind the form of inquiry chosen by the Government. The public, crying out for a public examination of the Gilded Ones who recklessly paddled the country up the creek, has been presented with an inquiry which will conduct its dirty work in private. The last bit, whenever that happens and you’d be wise not to hold your breath, is to be held in public.

What is it about this Government’s fixation with public/private partnership? They’ve had their fingers burned so many times with this particular approach that they’ve lost all feeling from the elbows down.

Although it might explain why Minister for Health Mary Harney was seated at the left hand of the Taoiseach in the Dáil. Mary was always a great champion of public/private partnerships before the economic balloon went pop.

And now here was Gormley, battling over the public airwaves to explain the concept, and how it relates to the bank inquiry.

“It’s not being held in secret, it’s being held in private,” he declared, as the listening public choked on its morning coffee.

By the way, just in case anyone thinks that the Government was steamrolled into saying it was anxious “to learn the lessons” from the reckless actions of the rampaging bankers, Gormley put the nation right on that score. Oh, yes.

The banking scandal broke and the economic bubble officially burst in September of 2008, so understandably, he sees himself as the Usain Bolt of this Government: “When I was interviewed by RTÉ on December 23rd [2009], one month later we had a banking inquiry.”

It’s the feckin’ media’s fault again.

As Speedy Gormzales was crashing in flames on the radio, Brian Cowen was on his feet in the Dáil and taking a heavy pounding from Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore.

Labour wanted to know why the decision was taken to guarantee Anglo Irish Bank – “a piggy bank for rogue developers in many cases” and a “delinquent bank, the rotten apple” of our rotting bank system. Poor Seanie FitzPatrick’s ears must have been burning. He blamed the decision on the European Commission. “They were furious! Furious!” exclaimed Pat Rabbitte, ladling on the sarcasm.

Joan Burton was busily polishing a spanner to throw into already creaking works of Brian’s Pedigree Chum administration.

The man who will do most of the inquiry’s “scoping” – isn’t that what burglars do before robbing your house? – is the governor of the Central Bank. Sure he’s “gagged” by law from introducing sensitive banking information into the public domain.

Poor Biffo was on the back foot. “You’re very good with the old conspiracy theories, and this one is as good as it gets,” huffed the Taoiseach. “I’m not accepting there is a problem.” But when Pat Rabbitte got stuck into this legal impediment for a second time, Biffo mumbled something about getting Brian Lenihan to clarify the issue later in the day.

It was a relief to get away in the afternoon from the banking crisis. Although it was to another Pedigree Chum issue – how the Government managed to make a dog’s dinner of an act of God.

Minister Noel Dempsey – the Maltese Snowman – was hauled before the transport committee to explain why the country ground to a halt because of the recent bad weather. “The first question I want to consider and address is what went well,” began Noel, ever the optimist.

Good old Noel was his dismissive, defiant self. He treated the committee to a dissertation on the bleedin’ obvious: the weather was only terrible and some people slipped “and it was awful for old people and farmers and some people were hurt”.

He was lambasted by Fine Gael’s Shane McEntee and Labour’s Tommy Broughan. Tommy remembered all the unfortunates who are now laid up, waiting for their “Dempsey Fractures” to mend.

Fianna Fáil’s Noel Ahern dismissed all “this airy-fairy global warming stuff”. “Cold spells of this duration are very rare,” ventured the Minister. And legislation may have to be introduced compelling people to clear snow from outside their premises. (Unless they are lucky enough to be sunning themselves in Malta.)

And so to the magnificent Willie O’Dea, who said during defence questions that the Army had been on standby. In fact, there had been much utilisation of “veh-heh-kils” to help those who asked for assistance.

But they had to be asked. It wasn’t his fault if some local authorities “were asleep”. The Army had to be asked before they could get stuck in – “it’s not the third secret of Fatima”. And then he stole the show with a stunning defence of the military: “It’s ludicrous to think of the Army sort of wandering around the country, or being requested, like latter-day Don Quixotes, seeking damsels in distress, riding Mowags instead of horses and deciding to vanquish dragons wherever they happened to meet them. I mean, this is ludicrous.”

You’d need a lie down after listening to them all.