THEY’RE AGOG in Abu Dhabi. Speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in the United Arab Emirates yesterday, Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan informed his international audience – including Ban Ki-moon and the president of Iceland – of the very latest state of play in the Fianna Fáil leadership heave.
Apparently the talk was of little else.
“As I was leaving Ireland we reached a new record in wind energy,” Ryan announced to the high-powered gathering. (That would have been from Sunday’s opening salvos.)
The international delegates were mightily impressed.
We’ve news for you, Eamo. That record was smashed in your absence. The wind began gusting on the morning radio shows and it gathered strength as the day wore on, huffin’ and puffin’ and blowin’ nationwide until the people were forced to batten down their ears and run for cover.
For a non-heave, which is being conducted quietly by principals who have declared they are not canvassing anybody for support, Brian Cowen and Micheál Martin were putting themselves about with abandon throughout the day and long into the night.
The Taoiseach is so confident he has confidence in himself that he can’t help confiding how confidently he feels about his chances to any stray microphone.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs is in and out of so many radio and television studios that he risks turning into Pat Rabbitte.
But no, they aren’t canvassing. There is no contest between the two – just a polite fight to the political death across the airwaves.
In these last two days, Biffo has been more accessible to the media than he has been in the last two years. And Micheál’s eager little face and soft Cork accent have been everywhere.
This microphone diplomacy indicates just one thing – Brian Cowen, for all his rediscovered swagger, is not confident. Micheál Martin, for all his cooing about the benefits of choosing a “healthy” public route to air his misgivings, is not confident.
Both men were blatantly canvassing their colleagues for votes, hoping to sway their parliamentary colleagues in advance of this evening’s vote. It’s a very civilised process on the surface, but vicious beneath.
If some of the whispered dispatches leaking from the party are to believed, the Taoiseach was less than sure of foot in the run-up to his grandstanding performance on Sunday.
It may be straining the imagination, but think of the graceful swan – confident motion above the water while flapping away for dear life below. That, we are hearing, was Cowen on Sunday, and on into yesterday.
More deputies have declared they will support the Taoiseach’s motion of confidence in himself than those who have come out against. Talk is cheap when ballots are secret.
Most of the big guns are keeping their powder dry. Brian Lenihan says he will make a statement ahead of today's vote. Mary Hanafin, who was due on RTÉ's Frontlineprogramme last night to talk about her Dún Laoghaire constituency, went into hiding. She was due to turn the sod on a local GAA club's new pitch yesterday morning but ditched her shovel at the last minute and didn't turn up. Will she bury the boss this evening?
Sorry, boys, but it would be great to see a capable woman scuttling out from behind the trembling skirts of her queasy male counterparts and showing them some real straight talking.
Willie O’Dea, heavy of heart, spoke from Limerick. He will not be supporting the Taoiseach.
Minister for Cheese Brendan Smith said he would be standing full square behind his leader, as did Minister for the Gaeltacht Pat Carey. Apart from the ever loyal Batt, the Rebel County contingent – surprise, surprise - mustered behind fellow Corkonian Martin.
A media alert went out in the afternoon. Brian Cowen would be attending a function in Ballsbridge. The pack rushed out to the Eirgrid headquarters and were duly confined to the lobby, while the Taoiseach did whatever he was supposed to be doing a few floors above.
Priceless publicity for Eirgrid, one would have thought. But there wasn’t as much as a press release to tell us why we, or he, was there. He had his photo taken in front of a bank of screens and then sat in front of a console.
Thank God he didn’t press any buttons, although some joked that he tried to cut the power supply to Cork but wasn’t successful.
Then a handler asked one of the journalists to ask a question about Eirgrid before going into the real questions, which was the reason everyone was there in the first place.
One of the hacks obliged, much to the amusement of his colleagues, and the Taoiseach rambled on about “North-South connectors” for a little bit before explaining again why he has confidence in himself. He also spoke, as he did the previous day, about the “settled” view of the party. Which isn’t settled at all and which is why he is worried about the secret vote.
How will it go? Who knows? A secret ballot. Worried politicians versed in the art of speaking from both sides of their mouths. An unpopular Taoiseach. An election imminent.
Anything could happen today.
One thing is for sure – whatever the result, it will have little to do with confidence in Brian Cowen and everything to do with timing. The result will depend on the amount of Deputies who think the time is not right for an election and another few weeks might help their cause.
Meanwhile, we hear Ryan is returning from his brief trip to Abu Dhabi.
The record wind energy should have abated by then.
Eirgrid won’t be worried one way or the other. The hot air of Brian and Micheál’s dry heave may have generated a lot of heat, but there’s been damn all light.
