Party leaders seem to have adjusted to the new balance of power that looks certain to emerge tomorrow, writes MIRIAM LORD
FINAL PRESS conferences for the main parties yesterday morning.
Oh, happy days.
Journalists clinked away noisily from Labour headquarters having swiped all the “Gilmore for Taoiseach” mugs. “They’ll be collector’s items in a few years’ time” said the shameless hacks.
An end-of-campaign calm began to settle on the various camps. Leaders prepared to return to their constituencies.
The traditional Healy-Rae photograph appeared in the national newspapers: this time it showcased Jackie and his tartan cap on a hairy pony in the scenic Gap of Dunloe, the pony’s brown fringe uncannily similar to Healy-Rae’s legendary comb-over.
One after the other, Sinn Féin and the United Left Alliance held their briefings in the shadow of Big Jim Larkin’s statue on O’Connell Street, the GPO in the background.
The foreign media’s love affair with Gerry Adams remains undimmed. His name still rings a bell with international audiences. They remember the Troubles, so Gerry, marching purposefully past the scene of the Rising, sells.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil held their events at the same time. In terms of popularity, FG was the box-office draw.
There has been much talk of changing political landscapes: yesterday’s topography told its own tale. Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil drew a compact audience of locally based correspondents. There was plenty of room. Coffee and biscuits were served.
The Fianna Fáil leader, we hear, was gung-ho after his strong performance in the previous night’s leaders’ debate. He was relaxed and confident, speaking with the unfettered candour of an opposition leader.
He’ll be a handful for the new government.
Meanwhile, Enda Kenny and Fine Gael had to delay the start of their press conference to accommodate the demands of a large complement of television crews from around the world. The crowd was out the door. The room was boiling.
Over the last two weeks, the centre of power has shifted from the old order to the new. (But only in respect of time served – there are many who would say there has never been much difference between the two main parties, aside from old quarrels.) The public perception of Fine Gael and its leader is changed. The party is in a different place. Power attracts and the previously disregarded Kenny is now the main attraction.
Fixer-in-chief and director of elections Big Phil Hogan couldn’t resist a little dig at the end of his presentation, when he did all but thank the parish priest for the use of the hall and reserved his highest praise for the man whose bacon he saved in the leadership heave.
That would be Inda Kinny: “Of course, being underestimated once again.” The same Inda has taken to bustling around the place in a blur of extravagant arm-waving and cufflink twiddling, doing that finger-pointing routine so beloved of American presidents when they salute imaginary friends in the crowd.
One suspects the influence of a communications adviser who spends too much time in the USA.
With luck, Enda might stop this hammy carry on when he gets into office.
“Fine Gael will hit the ground running,” he promised in his plan for the first 100 days. (Not wanting to appear presumptuous or anything.) The last major politician to make that particular pledge was Brian Cowen after he became taoiseach. Sadly for Biffo, when he hit the ground he broke both his legs.
The latest opinion poll results had just come in before the future taoiseach addressed the media, pegging party support at a rising 40 per cent. Enda and his team showed admirable discipline in refusing their urges to do cartwheels and chest bump each other.
But the backroom team laid on celebratory vol-au-vents to mark the occasion.
Labour went mad altogether and provided sausages and black pudding. They’re well over the heady “Gilmore for Taoiseach” days and quietly confident of going into coalition.
Reality has set in, and it isn’t all that bad.
Eamon Gilmore, who seemed more relaxed now that he doesn’t have to continue the pretence of the taoiseach thing, looked on the bright side. He reminded us how people scoffed when he first mooted that Labour should take part in the leaders’ debate.
But it happened, and the party went into the studio in second place, ahead of Fianna Fáil.
That’s a first, and Gilmore is confident that he will return to Leinster House with more deputies than the venerable Dick delivered with his Spring Tide.
“To be honest, I’m flattered and reassured that the question now being asked of the Labour Party is: ‘Why aren’t we in first place?’”
Earlier in the morning, speaking on Newstalk's Breakfastshow, former leader Ruairí Quinn was at his reasonable best.
At one point, he put forward his party’s credentials when it comes to dealing with the tricky area of the unions: “Fianna Fáil bought them. Fine Gael hates them. Labour understands them.”
The Greens held their last press conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, but not before they undertook a short walkabout in Grafton Street.
John Gormley was joined by his wife, Penny, and most of his outgoing TDs. The mood was relaxed and jovial as they gathered outside the Gaiety Theatre – the Cripples of Coalition beside posters for The Cripple of Inishmaan.
They haven’t lost hope. Eamon Ryan, for example, is in with a shout for the last seat in Dublin South. They got a largely sympathetic reception from the people they encountered on their saunter.
But back to the man of the moment. Enda was so laid back he began with a joke: “As you’re well aware by now, Fine Gael has a five-point plan.” The journalists cracked up. After three weeks, they, and the general public, are blue in the face hearing about Enda’s five-point plan. Enda, one imagines, is heartily sick of it too, but he isn’t allowed to say.
Big Phil, meanwhile, was still on the hunt for those precious number ones that could push Fine Gael into an unprecedented overall majority. He invited “the waverers” to throw in their lot with his party.
And then he came over all Shakespearian, doing a Blueshirt impression of Mark Anthony.
Friends, Waverers, “Decent” Fianna Fáilers – lend us your votes, he pleaded.
The vast majority of Fianna Fáilers are very decent people, so if Big Phil manages to get their support – if only on loan – his party will go stratospheric.
Like the aftermath of budget day in the Dáil bar, all the seats were removed from the Fine Gael conference room to accommodate the crowd. A velvet rope – very showbiz – was put in place to keep the hordes from Enda and Richard Bruton and Big Phil.
It was a blue rope.
Very apt.