Biffo should have left months ago – or his lily-livered lieutenants should have pushed him
IRELAND IS on autopilot. A tattered, depleted Government alone in the bunker and awaiting the inevitable, its leader a broken man.
Fianna Fáil has gone down in flames and is now desperately trying to salvage something from the wreckage.
The Greens are once more consigned to the margins, shattered by their coalition experience. But then, they always knew the consequence of bedding down with the Black Widow. History would have told them that. Meanwhile, the Opposition calculates its chances.
But Brian Cowen’s dying administration will not have a gun held to its head by the likes of Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore. They can finish themselves off, thank you very much, if only they could aim higher than their feet.
It’s a mess. People worry while politicians wrangle. But at least resolution is on the horizon. The slow march towards some sort of political order is finally nearing its destination.
Events moved quickly at the weekend. But not fast enough. Even as he stepped down from the leadership of the party he loved too much, Brian Cowen was still clinging to the last remnants of his ill-fated reign. “We will manage the situation,” he declared, with the reassuring authority of a man who had just lost the last little bit of it he had.
When word landed on Saturday morning that the Taoiseach would be holding a press conference, there was only one reason: he was about to resign. But in keeping with his blinkered conduct during his time in office, it would only serve to deliver more confusion.
Brian Cowen had little choice but to step down as leader of Fianna Fáil. Short of booking billboard space to get the message across to him, his party colleagues had made it clear they didn’t want him at the helm anymore.
A devastating personal situation for him; the only way out for everyone else.
Despite all that has been said and written about the man during his time as Taoiseach, this was a difficult episode to experience.
Biffo should have left months ago. If he didn’t want to go, his lily-livered lieutenants should have taken him out. That didn’t happen. By dragging their heels, they ensured that their leader would go out in a blaze of ignominy.
In the packed Wellesley Room in Dublin’s Merrion Hotel he steeled himself to face the media and make the first of his final bows. Stepping down as leader, but not as Taoiseach. Daft, to be sure, but in character. The next week or so will be awful for him. He should have thrown in the towel and gone to the Áras, but there are other considerations.
Cowen and his colleagues insist he is staying on as Taoiseach for the good of the country – but he can never disguise his visceral attachment to the party. That extra week or so will buy Fianna Fáil time to put some semblance of order on their chaotic internal situation.
He faced the cameras and put in a good performance. He wanted to “do the right thing”. When the leadership contest is completed, Fianna Fáil will go, united, into the general election.
He looked relaxed, said some. Relieved, said others. But he wasn’t, really. He was holding it together, that’s all.
Oh, but we all hate politicians at the moment. And Brian Cowen is the bullseye on the dart board at the moment. Pity about him, and all that.
Some at the press conference thought it was business as usual and went in hard accordingly. Cowen, gently, deflected them. There’s plenty of time for sliding the knife. Saturday morning wasn’t it.
Interestingly, Fine Gael young turk Leo Varadkar was asked on a news bulletin to do just that. Once, Leo would have risen to the challenge. But he didn’t, recognising that there’s a time and place for everything. He’s learning.
Brian Cowen tightly gripped the sides of the lectern as he spoke. Getting through it. There was just one moment, when he mentioned his family, when you could make out the little catch in his voice. At the end of his statement, when he thanked his wife, his children and his mother; Tánaiste Mary Coughlan struggled to hold back the tears.
He got through it. “Go raibh maith agat. Thank you very much,” he said.
Even as the camera flashes recorded his exit, thoughts were already turning to what happens next. The Labour Party held a press conference outside the Radisson Hotel in Golden Lane, next to their swanky new election headquarters. Eamon Gilmore spoke under a huge silver “V” sign on the back wall, surrounded by election candidates – a donut of the ambition.
A car drove past slowly, the driver rolled down the window and roared: “You’re all only mongrels anyway!” Enda Kenny, who left the impressive Michael Noonan to do all the heavy lifting over the last two days, did a brief interview from Northern Ireland, where he was attending the Alliance Party conference.
The real interest was in the Fianna Fáil leadership race. (A bit of diversion, because the IMF isn’t going away.)
Front-runner Micheál Martin was out first, interviewed outside his home in Cork. It looked good. Not a hint of Celtic Tiger bling on show. Then he went silent.
Lenihan the younger, Conor, locked in a fight to the death with constituency colleague Charlie O’Connor, continued his media offensive. Conor is “threatening” to run, said the commentators, which said it all.
Mary Hanafin declared her hand yesterday morning while attending the craft fair in the RDS. “Why are you writing me off before we even start?” she asked. Of all the declared candidates, she came across as the most competent and articulate. She said at one point: “Politics is my life. Fianna Fáil is my life. I devote all of my time and energy to it. I don’t have anything else. I’m absolutely committed to my job at the moment.” It sounded sad.
Éamon Ó Cuív declared from Galway. He wants to restore the old values, seemingly having forgotten that crossroads have been largely done away with during his party’s term in Government. Comely maidens trying to shake a leg these days risk meeting a grisly end on the wrong side of a speeding lorry.
And so, to Brian Lenihan. Not too long ago, he seemed to be the anointed one. Now he says, “I am the strongest challenge to Micheál Martin”. He held his press conference in the opulent surroundings of the Banking Hall in Dublin’s Westin Hotel. A fabulous setting, but not great for tub-thumping speeches. Such a huge room, with a high vaulted ceiling, it seemed to suck away the atmosphere. It was hard to hear the Minister for Finance. But he was confident and articulate and he always manages to sound convincing.
Who would Labour and Fine Gael not want to face in a leadership debate? Micheál or Brian? We suspect they are praying for nice Micheál, long cossetted away from the rough and tumble in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Wexford’s Seán Connick is proposing Lenihan for the job.
“If I was going over the top tomorrow morning, Brian Lenihan is the man I’d want by my side,” he said.
All the candidates made a pitch for the “youth” vote in the parliamentary party. In politics, anybody hovering around or below the 40 mark is deemed young. They’re called the “Ógra generation”. Not to be confused with the Ogre generation, as epitomised by the hapless Cowen.
And back to the Merrion Hotel’s Wellesley Room in the afternoon, scene of the Taoiseach’s trial the day before.
Heartbreak Hotel they’re calling it now.
The Green Party arrived after their deliberations in Government Buildings to give their verdict. There was no table for them to sit at – they always have a table. Instead, this would be a stand-up affair. “Bad news,” surmised one seasoned observer. And it was.
John Gormley looked wretched. Eamon Ryan fidgeted with his hands. Mary White looked close to tears. Paul Gogarty stared straight ahead, never saying a word. Trevor Sargent, with his buzz cut hair, stood like an army drill sergeant beside his leader.
Their body language said it all.
“The Irish people expect and deserve better,” said Gormley. “Our patience has reached an end.” Then they returned to Government Buildings. But only to retrieve their coats.
They’ll be fine. They are Greens. They believe.
They finished with a call for “bipartisanship”. They want a collective effort to get the Finance Bill through. The last time John Gormley called for a united approach he was given the bum’s rush by all sides.
It may happen this week, though. The political landscape is changing. But this particular quake has a bit to go.
In the meantime, we continue to drift. Brian Cowen went to a GAA match yesterday. We’ll not beat him up over it. Leave him to it, he’s hurting.
