Miriam Lord’s Week: Dramatic quiz livens up a quiet few days

Truly remarkable report from Sue Gray this week.

“The event lasted for a number of hours. There was excessive alcohol consumption by some individuals. One individual was sick. There was a minor altercation between two other individuals.

“The event broke up in stages with a few members of staff leaving from around 21.00 and the last member of staff, who stayed to tidy up, leaving at 3.15.”

Of course, we are denying everything.

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It was a very serious work event with journalists and politicians simply doing their jobs and interacting with one another in what was a very highly charged atmosphere. Many hard questions were put and answered during a very gruelling session.

It was a long night and, as would be reasonably expected, the tired and stressed out parties availed of a few drinks and nibbles.

Some politicians and media people ended up working well into the early hours of Wednesday morning. “We are humbled,” some of them said on Wednesday afternoon when they finally surfaced.

We wish to thank Sue for her excellent report and are delighted to ignore allegations that she was “got at” or “nobbled” in any way by leading politicians, respected broadcasters and senior columnists prior to publishing her findings.

Which prove nothing.

It is time now to move on from Tuesday night’s table quiz in Dublin’s five-star Marker Hotel which was attended by almost 300 politicians, hacks, advisers and assorted hangers-on, raising a magnificent €25,000 for the Irish Red Cross’s Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

Caught out with cricket question

With the Taoiseach and Tánaiste away on State duty in Davos and the leader of Sinn Féin on a media blitz across the pond with Michelle O’Neill, things were quiet enough around Leinster House.

The highlight of the week was the aforementioned quiz, which ended in high drama when it sensationally emerged that a well-known politics professor involved in the three-way, sudden-death playoff for victory had actually set the tie-break questions.

However, the controversy was short-lived thanks to the quick thinking of one of the event organisers, RTÉ’s Sharon Ní Bheolain, who alerted quizmaster Bryan Dobson in the nick of time. Bryan switched the questions on politics to posers on sport, thus sparing the blushes of DCU’s Dr Gary Murphy who had provided the tie-breakers, thinking his team wouldn’t be in the final shake-up.

The first question was about international rugby and the top scorer in this year’s Six Nations (Marcus Smith). This stumped the university professor, the Labour adviser and the Indo hack. Dobbo then asked them what cricket club plays at the Oval and Murphy, who hails from the cricket bastion of Cork, correctly answered “Surrey”.

Labour Party noses were out of joint. “They didn’t ask any questions about working-class sports,” grumbled communications director Cathal McCann. The Indo man was too distraught to comment.

Post-quiz celebrations

It is unusual to see representatives of almost all the political parties socialising together in a civilised manner, in a crowded room, with drink involved, without a cross word, for nearly three hours. But the politicians who hot-footed it from Leinster House to Grand Canal Square all seemed happy to be out.

Ceann Comhairle Seán O’Fearghail, official adjudicator for the evening, hoped that the TDs would not start misbehaving the way they usually do in the Dáil. Having just left a near-deserted chamber to find the hotel packed with deputies and Senators, he said the quiz organisers were better at their jobs than the party whips.

Seventy-one teams took part, including “The Rigs”, a team from the Rural Independents Group led by Mattie McGrath. Danny Healy-Rae arrived during the second half, having been warned not to participate or use his phone as this would provide an unfair advantage to The Rigs. As it turned out, they put in a respectable showing but didn’t trouble the higher rankings.

Mattie got a laugh though when Dobbo asked teams to name the day this year when Micheál Martin will step down as Taoiseach and hand over to Leo Varadkar.

“Not a day too soon!” he shouted.

But the biggest chortle came in response to the question “Which jockey partnered Shergar to victory in the Epsom Derby?” As the teams cogitated, a Fianna Fáil Senator mischievously shouted out the name of a well-known Sinn Féin member who was a very active member of the IRA in his heyday.

Sinn Féin fielded a number of tables, with one team heading the leader-board in the early stages before falling back. But Aengus Ó Snodaigh, TD for Dublin South Central, did well. He won two nights B&B and dinner in Kenmare’s Park Hotel in the raffle.

Many quizzers were stumped when asked to name all six Green party TDs in the 2007 coalition with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. The following morning, a rumour (untrue) that Eamon Ryan’s team flunked the question had already gained legs in Leinster House.

Heather Humphreys was unable to defend Tánaiste Leo Varadkar’s title. He took first prize the last time this quiz took place, largely due to the recruitment of his partner’s friend who is a quiz genius.

Two sets of Fianna Fáil politicians were in strong contention for the best-named team. “The Provisional Oireachtas Golf Society” members were TD Niamh Smyth, Senators Shane Cassells and Malcolm Byrne and non-golfer Darragh Calleary, who resigned as minister for agriculture after he attended the infamous Golfgate dinner to make a speech. Senator Gerry Horkan, MEP Barry Andrews, Cork North-Central’s Pádraig O’Sullivan and Dublin Bay South’s Jim O’Callaghan cheekily called themselves “Micheál’s Favourites”.

RTE’s Sharon Ní Bheolain, Joe Mag Riollaigh and Sorcha Ní Riada organised the event while Diageo, thanks to head of corporate relations Liam Reid (a political correspondent for this newspaper many moons ago) sponsored the bar. Michael Davern, general manager of the Marker, kept everything running smoothly while legions of politicians and journalist mobbed the bar afterwards.

Many took the party, and their parties, on into the night. Some of the Social Democrats, led by TD Gary Gannon, continued being social in Dawson Street’s Bar 57 with sundry members of Fine Gael also on the premises while the Fianna Fáil crowd pitched up in The George and stayed there until silly o’clock, with one middle-aged TD apparently wowing the regulars with his dancefloor moves.

One of them, according to talk in Leinster House at the end of the week, was talking just a little too much to journalists during Tuesday’s convivialities and is now being blamed as the snitch who told Craig Hughes of the Daily Mail about the Irish Bookmakers’ Association wining and dining a cross-party selection of politicians recently at Punchestown Races.

Grilled on live TV

This is the sort of domestic carry-on which happens when the bosses are away.

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach was carrying on with a very full schedule, marketing Ireland at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He was very much in demand with international news organisations anxious to hear his take on Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol.

But he did one interview for BBC 2′s Newsnight which really took the biscuit.

It was conducted by Faisal Islam, the corporation’s highly regarded economics editor, who adopted a strangely hostile and uncharacteristically accusatory attitude in his questioning. At times he gave the impression that the Brexit shambles was partly Micheál Martin’s fault (along with a scheming EU and the interfering Americans).

The economics editor sounded rather impatient with his guest and with the slow pace of progress on trade agreements, as if Michéal was the unprincipled politician attempting to slither out of an internationally binding agreement he boasted about signing while all the time knowing it to be a steaming crock of Boris and who is now blaming the messy result of his mendacity on the people who took him at his word and negotiated in good faith.

The man from the BBC seemed to think he had an oven-ready Taoiseach all trussed up and fit for a good roasting. But like Johnson’s far from oven-ready porky pies, Micheál wasn’t ready to be shoved in the oven and carved up by Newsnight.

As the UK government whines about EU intransigence, he calmly explained why solutions cannot be reached if one of the negotiating parties – Britain – is not engaging meaningfully, while stressing that Ireland has no “agenda” against the UK.

“I put it to you that the overall diplomatic effort and discussions that we’re having right now: threats of trade war, the Americans – at your behest – coming in also pressurising the UK; the end result of this is that you’re going to turn unionism, not just against the protocol but against the Good Friday agreement,” said Faisal Islam.

“First of all again, no one is threatening anything,” replied the Taoiseach quietly. “The only unilateral move that has been made here has been by the UK government which has threatened to tear up an international deal it signed with the European Union. That’s the only threat here.”

“I see an Irish leader here who thinks perhaps ‘the EU’s got our back. We’ve got a president in the White House who’s very Ireland-friendly’ and, just perhaps, you’re overplaying your hand and risking a delicate situation in Northern Ireland,” suggested the interviewer.

“We’re not overplaying any hand. We’re hardly playing the hand,” sighed Micheál, with commendable forbearance. He didn’t tear up any agreements.

But what about the important trade flow between Republic of Ireland and GB, which has been hit?

“It has been hit a bit” agreed the Taoiseach “and I get a sense the UK, perhaps, was not as well-prepared for it…”

Faisal jumped in. “So you’re blaming that on Britain?”

“Not all of it, but it’s just a fact,” he explained again. “Brexit is going to create that.”

“There were some problems in Dublin Port,” countered the interviewer.

“No, but Brexit means a disruption of trade,” stressed a smiling Micheál, bless his patience.

It was a most unusual encounter. To his credit (he doesn’t get it too often), an assured Micheál Martin was the voice of restraint and reason, in stark contrast to his ridiculously dangerous counterpart across the Irish Sea.

Maybe there was method to clever Faisal’s combative approach after all.