Dail Sketch:Have you got vertigo, Taoiseach? - Eh, no. Drumcondra is only down the road . . .
It may have been Charlie Haughey's pride and joy, but Bertie Ahern hates that helicopter landing pad on top of Government Buildings. One gust of wind, and he could end up flying over St Stephen's Green under his own steam.
A Bert, it seems, never flew on one wing. He prefers his mode of air transport to have two - one on either side of the fuselage. As far as Taoiseach Ahern is concerned, a government jet is your only man. "I don't use the landing pad because I don't like it. Full stop," he told the Dáil.
There was a time (the last election comes to mind) when Bertie was never done jumping in and out of helicopters, racing under the whirling rotors, leaving voters in no doubt that here was a dynamic leader with all his own hair.
Then, in one terrible year, three of the helicopters in which he had travelled crashed. Understandably, he has taken a set against choppers ever since. As he explained yesterday: "That finished me and helicopters except when I have to use one."
A typical Bertie statement, that. Like saying he hates trousers, except when he has to wear them. So the Taoiseach is now a nervous flyer. He omitted to tell the Dáil that he has had problems with the jets as well.
About the same time as his horror of helicopters grew, his plane was struck by lightning en route to Belfast. This explains why Bertie prefers to travel by state car whenever possible. It won't be in the manifesto, but if he gets back into power, he'll probably order a State car-ferry. All this talk of air travel arose during Taoiseach's Questions, when a number of queries were tabled about the Ministerial Air Transport Service.
The Opposition adore asking questions about the Government fleet, eager to paint pictures of Ministers gadding around like millionaires in their jet-propelled playthings, while ordinary Joes seethe on the ground in interminable traffic jams.
But Bertie, by the time he finished answering, managed to give the impression that he'd be happy to go from engagement to engagement on a horse and cart if it meant he didn't have to fly. In fact, he said that, given the chance, he would prefer to drive. "If I am going to Northern Ireland, as I have over the years, I would rather drive there, given the time it takes to get from Baldonnel and back," he said, even if security at the Border can be a drag. "The train is the job for Belfast," said Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
"Yes," agreed the Taoiseach in that baffling way of his, "when I was in Galway recently, I drove back." When he rhapsodises about driving thither and yon, it's Bertie the Bloke talking. In reality, the man has had a personal driver for twenty years. But to be fair, as he shoots down a bus lane under Garda escort or soars overhead in his jet, Bertie the Bloke is always there in spirit with the motorists left behind.
