THE Minister for Transport, Michael Lowry, is not only the cool hero of Fine Gael but is also one of its best fund-raisers. He has already brought in thousands for his own Tipperary North, so last Monday night he could afford to be charitable. He organised a dinner in Dublin's Burlington Hotel for the benefit of the poorer Dublin constituencies for which more than 700 guests paid £100-a-head.
The Minister told a joke before dinner. On his way to the mart a man's sow ate his wallet with £50 inside. The man kicked the sow a few times in the hope she would cough up, but to no avail. At the mart a farmer inquired what he was doing and the man explained that the sow coughed up £50 every couple of weeks. The farmer bought him for £500. A few weeks later the seller read in the newspaper "farmer fined £100 for kicking sow to, death".
The joke brought the house down which was surprising - considering the audience was almost entirely wealthy Dublin-based business people as opposed to farmers. Oireachtas colleagues were much in evidence including Nora Owen, who was called on to say grace, Michael Noonan who came after his appearance on RTE's Questions & Answers, Avril Doyle, Bernard Durkan, Hugh Coveney, Frances Fitzgerald, Jim Higgins, Maurice Manning, Liam Cosgrave, Donal Carey and Joe Doyle. So surprising was the attendance by the former FF press secretary and bestselling author Sean Duignan that one FG woman told him she lost a bet of £10 on his identity. The Taoiseach John Bruton dashed in and out from attending to Anglo-Irish affairs in time to make the speech.
And which are the poorer Dublin constituencies? Probably where FG has no deputies at all - Dublin South West and Dublin North East. But then there's Dublin West - it may not be the poorest but it is certainly the most urgent given the imminent by-election and the reported poor showing of the FG candidate, Councillor Tom Morrissey, in the private polls.