QUIDNUNC: With the Dáil dissolved and the countrywide canvass in overdrive, there is little talk at this stage among leaders on post-election alliances. Their attention is totally devoted to upping the party vote and getting the maximum number of seats to improve their position at the negotiating table.
On this occasion there are no formal agreements between the parties, so while all options are open and no sector of the electorate will be excluded by pre-election pacts, the parties have their preferences and they're not a secret.
Fianna Fáil is the only one capable of winning an overall majority, but it won't admit it wants it for fear of frightening the populace. Bertie Ahern went so far as to say he would take the PDs into government with him even if their numerical strength wasn't needed. This is a highly unlikely scenario for even if the offer was made, the PDs would be unlikely to accept power without having power.
At this point in the campaign, a return of the present coalition, Ahern and Mary Harney, with or without a few Independents, is considered the most likely result.
Fine Gael, despite predictions, expects to hold its present strength and if Labour increases its numbers and the Greens do well, a Rainbow is on the cards with Michael Noonan as taoiseach and Ruairí Quinn as tánaiste. If they are needed to make up the numbers, the PDs could be in here too. If FF drops from its present position and the PDs fail to increase their seats from the outgoing four, an FF/Labour coalition is likely. It's not something FF wants; Labour, negotiating from a position of strength, would be too demanding both on cabinet seats and policies.
So what will the result mean for the leaders? Even if Ahern is not the next taoiseach, he will remain as party leader for at least one more general election. Should he step down, Brian Cowen, Micheál Martin and Dermot Ahern are possible successors, but there will be no heave. Noonan is likely to vacate the leadership if he is not elected taoiseach. Enda Kenny, Avril Doyle, Alan Dukes and Charlie Flanagan are mentioned as successors. Should Quinn go in the unlikely event of a poor Labour result, Eamonn Gilmore and Brendan Howlin are potential leaders. What happens in the PDs depends on who is elected, but Liz O'Donnell, Michael McDowell and Tom Parlon are all seen as leadership material.
For those lefties who could take their eye off the election for a minute there was surprise this week at one section of the ICTU's glossy brochure detailing the unions' submission to the National Forum on Europe, which is sitting in Dublin Castle under Maurice Hayes. The submission, which has already been delivered by General Secretary David Beggs, states "neutrality is not something which, in our opinion, can be sustained as a moral principle in all situations". It would be better, it says, to have a common security and foreign policy capable of supporting a coherent and effective role for the EU.
So the unions are moving away from a position of neutrality at all costs. And yes, they were consulted, says the ICTU.
Paddy O'Hanlon was the SDLP MP for South Armagh in the old Stormont parliament from 1969 to 1975. He served as deputy speaker and party whip. He is now a criminal lawyer, called to the Northern Ireland bar in 1986 and the Irish bar in 1995. His first novel will be published this month.
The Crossmaglen Dispatch is described as a political thriller and a meditation on the politics of revenge. Although, says O'Hanlon, it is set in South Armagh during "the war years", his novel is more universal than focused on the straightforward conflict between the IRA and the British army.
It tells the story of a journalist on the Mullaghbawn Monitor who is forced to confront the consequences of violence in his own life. It is fiction, says the author, but it has something to do with his own personal journey.
O'Hanlon, a first cousin of Rory O'Hanlon TD, is representing the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association at the Bloody Sunday Tribunal in Derry. He was on his way to the march in 1972 when he was arrested outside Strabane and detained for three hours. The march was over when he arrived.
The Flood Tribunal is extending its inquiries and, Quidnunc understands, a number of spouses of politicians are being called for interview about their finances. Some well-known wives have already been queried, but the trawl is now moving out as lawyers for the tribunal feel that spouses must be investigated, as in most cases the financial affairs of a couple are intertwined. Some could be summoned to appear before a public hearing.
One issue escaping notice in the campaign to date is the second referendum on Nice, expected now in late autumn and a major headache for the incoming government.
The new cabinet will no doubt be alarmed to read the current report on Ireland from the Economist Intelligence Unit which says Irish voters are more than likely to reject the Nice Treaty again causing the treaty to be scrapped.
"This will convulse the EU, raise fresh doubts about its enlargement and precipitate one of the most serious crises in Ireland's foreign relations in the state's 80-year history."
The report says the Republic is likely to reject the second and final referendum for broadly the same reason as it did the first - that while a majority are in favour of Nice, a far more motivated minority who oppose the treaty will turn out and vote in greater numbers. EU matters, it says, are seen as "impenetrable, irrelevant or simply uninteresting".
Michael Tutty was a low-profile second secretary in the Department of Finance when he was plucked from the mandarins to become Vice President of the European Investment Bank and was moved post haste to Luxembourg. Who filled the Republic's place was of particular interest because the first nominee had been former Supreme Court judge Hugh O'Flaherty. The row over that appointment was furious and lasted for weeks. When O'Flaherty withdrew and Tutty took over, interest in the job faded, but the civil servant has been beavering away since, lending money for regional development in the union and overseas.
A keen cyclist - of the 60 miles a day variety - Tutty is hosting a visit by his former cycling group from the Department of Finance over this weekend, and a cycle into Germany and through the Moselle vineyards and the Ardennes is planned. Next year the Luxembourg group he has joined will come to Ireland and the Dublin and Wicklow mountains are on the programme.
Mo Mowlam will be in Dublin on Friday for the Irish launch of her book, Momentum: The Struggle for Peace, Politics and the People. She is certain to get a better reception here - where her role in the North is still fêted and her un-British touchy-feely demeanour is appreciated after years of aloof Tory secretaries of state - than she has in London. Momentum is just out in Britain and not only have the reviews been mixed, but the promotional interviews have been noteworthy for the irreverence of the author and the discomfort, if not actual distaste, of the interviewers at her strong language and unorthodox behaviour.
The early chapters dealing with her brain tumour and years in Northern Ireland have been praised for their straight-talking about a time when she made genuine achievements, but the later chapters have attracted almost universal criticism. The turn both in her fortunes and her attitude appears to have started when she received a standing ovation at the 1998 Labour conference and there was talk of her as a future prime minister.
When she was reluctantly moved from Northern Ireland she turned down the positions of secretary of state for health and education and rejected a proposal to run for Lord Mayor of London. She wanted the Foreign Office, but would accept Defence on the way there. Instead she got the cabinet office, hated it, and the feuding with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, and Alistair Campbell intensified. London critics have compared Mowlam's current attitude to the Great Sulk of Ted Heath, "petulant, self important and paranoid", even bizarre.
Momentum has been serialised in the Daily Mail where the rows between New Labour cabinet ministers are considered great craic altogether and Mowlam has not pulled her punches. It is rumoured she has made a lot of money from her work, but as many have pointed out, she probably needs it.
She and her husband now live in Hackney, a far cry from Hillsborough Castle. For her, politics is over, unless she goes to the House of Lords. As a former cabinet minister she is entitled to the elevation, but turned it down when she left the Commons. Now it is said she might accept a peerage. What nicer way to end a political career?