MIRIAM LORD'S WEEK:Congratulations and happy birthday to our Coalition twins, Enda and Eamon. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste share the same birthday, which this year falls on Easter Sunday. And two happier Easter bunnies you won't find in Leinster House next week. For those into astrology, this actually makes Kenny and Gilmore Easter bulls, as they are born under the sign of Taurus.
As you can see from this photograph, Kenny is already in a party mood, cradling an electric guitar and pretending he’s his idol, Bruce Springsteen. “Born to Run” is the caption on the photograph of “the Boss” that is being used by the organisers of the Castlebar Blues and Beyond Festival.
Kenny posed with musician Gráinne Duffy on Monday to publicise the event, which runs in his home town over the June bank-holiday weekend.
The Taoiseach isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary on Easter Sunday to celebrate his big day, although this is a milestone birthday for him: 60 years old. He got the ultimate present last month when he was elected Taoiseach by the Dáil. Kenny will attend the 1916 commemoration in Dublin on the morning of Easter Sunday before returning to Co Mayo to spend the rest of the day with his family. “I’ll probably stick to my normal routine: head out on the bike or do some hillwalking. We’ll have a good day,” he says.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, a mere whippersnapper, will be 56.
Political Seanadigans in Tipperary North
All’s fair in love, war and Seanad election campaigns. The race for the upper house (will it ever finish?) continues to provide entertainment for smug deputies who don’t have to worry about securing a berth for themselves in the cosy club that is Leinster House.
One tactic being employed by some of the more mature candidates is to trumpet their lack of ambition to TDs, who live in perpetual fear of political rivals. They are targeting those shiny candidates for whom a Seanad seat represents a staging post on the road to Dáil Éireann, helpfully pointing out to sitting deputies that they could be a threat to them in the next general election. Why vote for someone who wants to take your job off you? Why give them a Seanad platform for their ambition? It’s an argument that holds cross-party appeal.
Meanwhile, enthusiastic efforts by a Fine Gael councillor to bag a seat in the upper house have discommoded his senior man in Tipperary North.
“To paraphrase Mark Twain: reports of my political demise have been greatly exaggerated,” deputy Noel Coonan tells us after hearing that a colleague is canvassing support on the basis that his local TD could be on the way out. Nenagh-based councillor Conor Delaney has told Fine Gael deputies that he would be well placed to retain Coonan’s seat if he had the springboard of a Seanad seat.
Coonan’s parliamentary party colleagues were highly amused to receive a text from Cllr Delaney urging them to “vote strategically”. It read: “Other 7 FG candidates come from constituencies that either elected new TDs in 2011 or already have established TDs, so realistically, no room for a senator for at least 20 years. Different story in Nth Tipp. Sitting TD may not run or only run one more time, so therefore room for senator to retain seat in 5-10 years.”
This comes as news to Noel. “Lowry tried to take me out. So did Fianna Fáil, and now it’s one of my own,” he says. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving the pitch now – the game has only started. I’ll see them all off.
“Conor is a very hard worker and very enthusiastic. He’s just getting a little ahead of himself.”
Having an ex-minister for brekkie
Surely the Government can find a job for the former Green Party minister Eamon Ryan? It's an emergency. His wife, Victoria White, former arts editor of this newspaper, poured her heart out to readers of the Evening Heraldon Thursday about the crisis going on behind closed doors in a certain residence in Clonskeagh.
“It’s the crisis of what the hell we’re going to do with Dad,” she writes. Thankfully, “the mortgage is okay and the future looks bright. But . . . you’re still looking at your partner over the breakfast table wondering what you’re going to do with him.”
Chin up, Eamon. We hear Dan Boyle is recording an album and writing a book.
Union official loses the rags
It’s a curse to be popular. But things could be worse. You could be a so-called member of Impact. Or write for a so-called newspaper.
Jerry King, chairman of the Impact union’s local-government, education and local-services division, has written to all his members on foot of a motion at their divisional conference in 2009 deploring their depiction in the media. His missive arrived last week, sent at the request of the divisional executive committee.
“As public servants make up a huge block of the newspaper-buying population, we need to think very carefully about which, if any, newspapers we buy. For instance, I used to buy the so-called Independent each day and then changed to the Times. After assessing the direction in which that paper was heading and seeing not much difference, I then decided to stop buying daily ‘viewpapers’ at all.
“I would pose the question as to why one would pay over money to newspapers, who seem to take a certain line, which may incite others to destroy what terms and conditions we have left? The vile campaign against us, led in the first instance by the Independent group, was the platform that led to the so-called pension levy as well as subsequent pay and pension cuts. Witness the line taken on our annual leave this week by the so-called Independent. I urge you to make your consumer choice based on what they write about us. The €8 I save each week more than pays for my Impact membership with money left over, and my blood pressure has improved as well.”
This is all very fine, but our blood pressure here in the so-called Times isn’t the best. King continues: “And no, I don’t miss reading about how I am, allegedly, overpaid, lazy and have a ‘Rolls Royce’ pension to ‘cushion’ me for the rest of my life. A pension into which apparently I have never made an adequate contribution during the 40 years that again, allegedly, I am spending sitting at a desk drinking tea and eating biscuits whilst being an unbearable burden on the taxpayer. It is now time for members to consider the above and make the appropriate ‘adjustment’ to your spending habits. If members do this together it will work – the effects will be felt in weeks.”
On the other hand, they could always read the newspapers on the web. But obviously not, of course, during so-called working hours.
Is it a bird? Is it Ming?
The campaign against the ban on turf cutting in raised bogs has been a lot more high-flying than might be expected. Luke “Ming” Flanagan, spokesman for the Turf Cutters and Contractors’ Association, recently took to the skies with Minister for Heritage Jimmy Deenihan and Fine Gael’s Denis Naughten to view the contentious bogs. We hear there was no room for Naughten’s constituency colleague Frank Feighan, who had to drive like the clappers around the terrain before meeting up with the party in Galway. “Ming is being bankrolled by the turfcutters,” said a Leinster House observer, in one of the more bizarre conspiracy theories about the new Independents.
STILL ON MATTERS rural, we spotted smooth-talking Liam Cahill, spokesman for the Rural Ireland Says Enough! campaign during last year’s controversial stag-hunting debate with Minister of State for Food Shane McEntee. Fine Gael has said it will reverse that decision. That should please Cahill, and the Labour Party, which voted against the ban.
It's like Father Ted on scrap Tuesday
The former 98fm and Newstalk journalist Cathy Madden was named assistant Government press secretary earlier this week. Madden, who is the Labour Party’s chosen mouthpiece, sat in on her first briefing with the political correspondents on Tuesday evening.
This is a weekly ritual whereby the press secretaries wearily troop over to the pol corrs and tell them the official Government line on the post-Cabinet-meeting stories of the day. Then certain journalists will pile in – and things often get a little fraught.
It went swimmingly, as usual, we hear.
Eoghan Ó Neachtain, who was press secretary to Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen, is still in the job, having been asked to remain on for a transition period. Man’s man Ó Neachtain is being shadowed by former Fine Gael press officer Feargal Purcell, who takes over in a few months.
Both are former Army officers.
The briefing was a fractious affair, and Madden looked on silently as Purcell ended up in a side room having a heated argument with a senior newspaper journalist about Enda’s jobs non-budget, while Ó Neachtain became embroiled in an angry row with a senior radio journalist about text notification for events.
Purcell and the hack settled their differences and made up.
Ó Neachtain and the broadcaster took their argument into the lift, down Molesworth Street and all the way to Leinster House.
The altercation was monitored by lurking journalists.
“It was hot and heavy. I feared there was going to be a headbutt at one point,” recalls one, gleefully. “But then the Ceann Comhairle passed and they stopped and smiled at him. ‘Oh, hello, Ceann Comhairle!’ they said, like the couple in Father Ted who are always killing each other but become a loving couple when they see a priest.”
Wonder what the new deputy press secretary made of it all.
Reilly house of Pain
The Minister for Health might consider going into the BB business next month when Barack Obama visits Offaly. James Reilly owns a fine country pile in rolling parkland in Moneygall, where there would be plenty of parking for bulletproof limousines and all the room in the world to land a presidential helicopter.
According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, Laughton House is an important late 18th-century house that was rebuilt by the Pain brothers in the early 19th century. Originally it faced north and had a shallow full-height half-hexagon bow in the centre. It was turned around to face south and the doorcase put at one end.
The house has very fine detailing and is probably the Pains’ finest classical work. Traces of the late-18th-century decoration can be seen in the house, as well as the early- 19th-century changes.
Isn’t it somehow apt that the Minister for Health’s rural retreat was built by the Pain brothers?
The loneliness of the long-distance Ceann Comhairle
Micheál Martin gave a promising indication of things to come in the 31st Dáil when he supported Fine Gael’s nomination of Seán Barrett for Ceann Comhairle. “In the often unruly exchanges which have taken place in the House from time to time, his has been a rather restrained voice,” he said.
What does he think now? The Ceann Comhairle has taken to his new role with gusto and hasn’t given the leader of the Opposition any quarter during exchanges. One can sense Martin’s mounting frustration as Barrett applies the letter of the procedural law to his contributions.
He has taken a similarly tough line with Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit, who is having a torrid time at the hands of his Dún Laoghaire constituency colleague. CC Barrett flattened RB Barrett during the order of business on Thursday as he attempted to make a statement. Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin has also been cut off at the verbal knees by the chair. On the other hand, Barrett’s habit of referring to Mary Lou McDonald as “Deputy Mary Lou” is rather endearing.
During the last government Barrett couldn’t hide his frustration at the way in which Dáil procedure hampered proceedings. “The Dáil should be a modern parliament for a modern age,” he said when elected to the chair. “Debate can be constructive and passionate, but most of all responsive.” Barrett said he intends to be proactive in political and procedural reform.
He stuck an upturned palm in the Taoiseach’s direction during the week and told him to say nothing. Enda meekly obeyed.
The job of Ceann Comhairle has always been seen as a lonely one. Recent office-holders maintained a strict distance from former colleagues, shunning the bar and eating alone. John O’Donoghue, a collegial sort, had his meals brought to his office.
When he became Ceann Comhairle Barrett made it known he was not going to detach himself from normal life. But he must also maintain his independence. To this end we hear he has annexed a table in the middle of the members’ bar, away from the corners frequented by particular party cliques. “It is very much a non-party-political table. Deputies and senators from any party can ramble over for a chat, and Seán is happy to talk to them, while not taking sides.” A sensible solution.
