The Dáil’s Regional Independent Group has lodged a complaint to the Ceann Comhairle and the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission after a social media influencer posted a foul-mouthed and scathing review of the meal he was served in the Dáil members’ restaurant while there as the guest of an Independent Ireland TD.
Cork-based content creator Richie Herlihy, who robustly reviews spice boxes and other takeaway favourites for his online platforms, visited Leinster House a month ago on the invitation of Cork North Central TD, Ken O’Flynn.
On the day, Deputy O’Flynn told the Dáil his friend, who also runs a food truck, “has the best battered sausage in Cork”.
After his visit, the comedian/influencer uploaded a video on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. The visit also featured on Independent Ireland’s social media feeds.
Richie began by giving a plug to the menswear shop in Cork where he picked his new suit for the occasion. And he said there was 10 per cent off everything in the shop for his followers (126,000 and counting on TikTok and 85,000 on Facebook).
Then he meets Ken “the legend himself”, who is seen showing him around the place.
He loved that, as he also loved the “as creamy as they f***in’ get” pints served in the bar. He didn’t like the food, though.
Taking photographs and videos without permission is prohibited in the public areas of Leinster House, including the bars and restaurants. There are strict rules around this, although in recent years, as everyone has a mobile phone, an unspoken tolerance has developed for people taking discreet pictures for personal use.
Richie’s visit, though, was something of a production.
He set up a camera with a microphone attached on a tripod beside his table in the restaurant where he sat next to Ken O’Flynn. A friend simultaneously recorded the scene on his phone.
The camera zoomed in on his chicken liver pate and an opinion was given. “Like dog food” with “burnt” toast, which was “actually f***in’ soggy” like it was “cooked on a radiator”.
As for his chicken curry. “I’d say Micheál Martin cooked this yoke anyway because I’ve had better microwaved dinners out of Lidl. Absolute garbage, chicken tough as a badger’s arse.”
Could they not get it right “with all the money [they] waste up in the f***in’ Dáil . . . absolute sh***.”
There were scenes of banter with Ken in his office, and as Richie walked the corridors he commented for his followers: “There’s a smell of vermin in here, vermin in the f**kin’ hallways!”.
Richie said Ken treated him like gold and all the TDs he met were very nice. He met none of the TDs he wouldn’t get along with, but if he had, he would have given them a piece of his mind.
As he was leaving, the content creator talked about having to wash the “smell of vermin” out of his suit “because of the other rats that are in there”.
The video upset the hard-working catering staff in particular. The politicians were angered on their behalf and they weren’t amused by the references to vermin either.
The video was deleted soon afterwards but it is still doing the rounds on Kildare Street. Staffers are still very annoyed about it.
This prompted the Regional Group to lodge a formal complaint and request that Deputy O’Flynn apologise to the catering staff. The group comprises the Lowry TDs, Danny Healy-Rae, Mattie McGrath, Carol Nolan and those junior ministers previously attached to the group.
Minister of State Noel Grealish said he sat down and spoke to the staff because “they were extremely upset” over the video. “They take pride in their job and they take pride in the quality of the food they produce.”
Meanwhile, Mattie McGrath took the issue to the floor of the Dáil on Wednesday when he called for an apology from Ken O’Flynn, who hosted the influencer.
“A deputy brought an outside person into this House with a tripod and camera. That person made appalling videos and denigrated the excellent staff of this House in the restaurant and the excellent cuisine on offer there,” he told the Dáil.
Meanwhile, there will be no apology from Richie Herlihy.
“These politicians should have more on their plate with the state they have the country in, instead of this handbags” he told us on Friday.
“I told the truth that day, food I got was shocking, and some of them politicians including Mattie McGrath should be busy working on the real problems in this country. There have been threats to public safety from the people they have let into Ireland. Should be more on their agenda to be keeping the Irish people safe than to be attacking me about a bit of banter with a bit of truth in it!”
We were unable to contact Deputy O’Flynn.
Emotive fox-hunting issue attracted outsiders to the Dáil, some of whom arrived on all fours
Rural based TDs Danny Healy-Rae and Independent Ireland’s Michael Collins were criticised on Wednesday for trying to stop the passage of a Bill to ban fox hunting at its first stage.
Ruth Coppinger of People Before Profit introduced it in the Dáil. She was gobsmacked when the two deputies spoke against it and Danny called for a vote. It is common practice for Bills to go through on the nod for a full debate at the next stage.
The Dublin West TD said it was “unprecedented” for a TD to try to prevent a Bill from reaching second stage and a full airing in the Dáil.
“I have introduced many controversial things, as have other TDs, and I have never stopped a Bill from going to second stage. I have been told to put on the big-girl pants and allow debate, but here we have a stifling of the freedom of debate and freedom of speech.”
Coppinger urged the Government not to back the call to block it.
But Healy-Rae said he got calls “from every corner of Kerry” asking him “to ensure that we stop this at the start”.
Farmers are losing hens and lambs to foxes, he said. “They’re all over the place. They’re coming into towns and villages. They’re in and out of bins and they’re everywhere. They’ve completely taken over the place.”
Collins said foxes are a danger to young lambs and native birds, and controls are needed for “pests” such as the fox and the hare.
“We have to have some kind of controls, because the next thing is you’ll be inside here looking to see if we can protect the rat or the mouse or whatever. And nobody wants to protect the human being, that’s the problem here.”
As he spoke, a strange noise, like an animal bleating, came from the public gallery where anti-blood sports campaigners were sitting.
Collins, a TD for Cork South-West, stopped and looked around.
He said: “Sorry, is that a lamb or what?”
Meanwhile, the following evening, as the Dáil voted on whether or not to scupper legislation to outlaw the killing of foxes for “sport” without a full hearing, one interested observer was spotted sitting stock still at a back door around the services side of the building, as if listening intently.
The Bill passed to the next stage.
And the little Leinster House fox hurried away.
Turning the page from one generation of political journalist to the next
A big crowd escaped from Leinster House after the weekly voting bloc on Wednesday and streamed down the road towards Hodges Figgis bookshop for the launch of Gavan Reilly’s latest opus: The Secret Life of Leinster House.
Among the TDs was Government-supporting Independent Barry Heneghan, currently sans moustache, but that could change by next week. Barry was in good form, having just voted against the Government and in favour of Sinn Féin’s pro-Palestine Bill seeking to prevent the Irish Central Bank from facilitating the sale of Israeli bonds in the European Union.
Veteran newsman and political commentator Sean O’Rourke did the honours at the launch in a lengthy and entertaining speech on how political journalism has changed down through the years. He drew on his own early years with the Irish Press group, focusing on one particular day in the 1980s when the Evening Press released three editions.
The early edition trumpeted that Fianna Fáil minister Séamus Brennan was “on the brink” of resigning.
The next edition, a couple of hours later, had “pressure” mounting on Séamus to go. And the headline on the final, late evening edition, announced that Brennan was staying on.
Gavan, whose wife Ciara is a daughter of former GAA president and Kilkenny hurling great Nicky Brennan, could not have spoken for as long as Sean even if he wanted to. Midway through his speech he realised he forgot to order the takeaway for the babysitter and wrapped things up pretty sharpish after that.
“This book will provide an important public service,” said our own Pat Leahy in his review last week.
The Secret Life of Leinster House (published by Gill Books at €17.99) clips along at a fair pace and does a good job of explaining for outsiders and aspiring anoraks how the whole place does or doesn’t work.
Committee meetings could be blink-and-you-miss-it affairs if early indications are accurate
The committees are cranking into action after a much-delayed start and a lot of fuss over who would get those coveted committee chairs.
The lesser vice-chair prizes are now being decided. This week, the Health Committee voted on a deputy for Pádraig Rice, Social Democrats TD for Cork South-Central. There were two contenders: Fine Gael’s Colm Burke from across the way in Cork North-Central and Martin Daly, Fianna Fáil TD for Roscommon-Galway.
Colm was a minister of state at the Department of Health in the last government, while Martin, a first-time deputy, is a GP based in Galway and a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation. He is Fianna Fáil’s spokesperson on health.
Dr Daly, with his extensive experience in the medical world, was seen as favourite for the position. But Colm, who was an MEP and then a senator before he was elected to the Dáil in 2020, proved a very strong campaigner.
He got the job, thanks to support from Sinn Féin.
A thank-you, perhaps, for Colm signing a cross-party letter sent by Sinn Féin to the Minister for Housing urging him to release immediate funding for the Tenant in Situ Scheme in Cork city. The scheme allows councils to buy rental properties when landlords put them on the market. Colm was the only Government TD to sign the letter.
Timing will be a major bone of contention at forthcoming committee meetings.
In its desire to please everyone and come up with all sorts of new committees on all sorts of subjects, the time available for sittings has been truncated.
Too many com-mit-tees and not enough meeting rooms or staff to cope.
This explains why the much-anticipated meeting of RTÉ and the Media Committee was conducted at a breakneck pace by chairman Alan Kelly. They could have gone on for hours, but in a lucky break for RTÉ, this wasn’t possible.
He had to be out of the room after 2½ hours — and that included their private session — to make way for the daintily titled Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform, Digitalisation, and Taoiseach.
