Greens up in arms over leaked document; Coalition A-teams go head to head; Dear Leo . . .; Dublin South West’s sporty bunch; pitter-patter of tiny feet drowns out Ring; Lisbon winners receive gongs
Green Party turns its guns on the humble mole
ALL THIS cuddly-wubbly-lubbly little animals stuff from the Greens is just for show.
They would have us believe that the future of the Government is in jeopardy unless a ban on hare coursing is included in a renegotiated programme for government.
Do not be fooled. The Greens’ headquarters could have doubled as the home of the field sports association during the week, as party top brass succumbed to a sort of blood lust normally associated with the start of the grouse season.
And the furry creature that sparked the sudden onset of this hunting frenzy? Only the harmless, humble, defenceless little mole.
We hear that the leadership and their horrified handlers started shootin’ up the town on Thursday when they saw full details of their wish-list for government plastered across the front page of The Irish Times.
The document, which was given to the Taoiseach on Tuesday by John Gormley and is intended to form the basis for negotiations between the two parties, had somehow fallen into the hands of our political editor, Stephen Collins.
A big inquiry was launched into how the document leaked out. As buckshot continues to pepper the walls, party advisers and insiders have been keeping a low profile.
One journalist who innocently phoned to inquire if Fianna Fáil had responded by presenting a position paper of their own, was met with a snarled “Yeah, they’re reintroducing badger-baiting and bare-knuckle fighting in car parks.” Happily, despite the attempt at a cull, all Green Party moles are still at liberty and safe.
Fresh faces in ranks of programme negotiators
It must be very exciting for the Green’s A-Team – Minister Eamon Ryan, Deputy Mary White and Senator Dan Boyle – as they square up to Biffo’s trio of ministerial heavyweights – Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey and Mary Hanafin.
Three delicate flowers against two bovver boys and a boot girl.
You’d be inclined to worry for the Greens, if you didn’t know they are more than able to look after themselves.
Just two politicians – Noel and Dan – remain from the teams which negotiated a way into government in June 2007. Back then, Brian Cowen, the late Séamus Brennan and Noel Dempsey togged out for Fianna Fáil. Donning the Green jerseys were John Gormley, Dan Boyle and then party general secretary Donáll Geoghegan.
The two party leaders at the time – Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent – are now ex-leaders, while two of the negotiators stepped into their shoes.
Bertie is doing bits and bobs around the place and is about to launch his autobiography. Trevor, meanwhile, is now a well-paid junior minister with a portfolio which seems more like a hobby than a job.
He seems to spend most of his time getting his photograph taken with organic vegetables.
And it’s happy days for vegetable-tart Trevor in this regard. In our latest update from “Trevor’s Kitchen Garden” we are delighted to reveal that the Minister’s parsley (three hand-plucked sprigs presented in a vase) took first prize last week at The Naul and District Horticultural Show.
There is just one dark cloud on the horizon. Trevor’s apples have powdery mildew.
This means they won’t have made the grade for the fruit bowl – the very large fruit bowl – which was brought in, along with a range of scones and pastries, to sustain the programme for government negotiating teams in Government Buildings yesterday.
Nama insider lends some advice to Varadkar
A source close to Nama (where they obviously aren’t doing much work yet) asks us to forward the following letter to Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, who wants Nama to take his apartment, which is now in negative equity, off his hands.
“Dear Deputy Varadkar, I regret to inform you that there is no benefit to you in selling your apartment to Nama. Unfortunately, you will still owe the full value of the mortgage outstanding. If you fail to meet these repayments, you are likely to have your property seized by Nama and you could not avail of the 12-month moratorium on mortgage repayments that exists with your present mortgage provider. The possible resultant bankruptcy proceedings could bring a premature end to your very promising political career.
“In addition to the key point above, it is unfortunate that you fail to understand the Nama valuation formula: If your mortgage provider succeeded in selling the mortgage to Nama, then Nama would not pay your estimate of €420,000 but between €270,000 and €288,000 based on your market price estimate of €250,000 and the actual book value of the mortgage.
“Given you are such an outspoken critic of public waste, I am very concerned by your basic calculation mistake that would benefit a bank to the tune of €150,000.
Yours sincerely,
A humourless public servant.”
Just goes to show that public servants don’t spend all their time swotting for pub quizzes.
TDs cut a dash during volleyball triumph
They’re a very sporty bunch in Dublin South West. Fianna Fáil’s Charlie O’Connor entertained Giovanni Trapattoni in Tallaght last weekend, while his colleague, Conor Lenihan, regularly lines out for the Oireachtas rugby and soccer teams.
Now comes news of a cross-party sporting event in the constituency last Monday, when the four sitting TDs played a volleyball match against a crack team of local players.
Charlie and Conor were joined in the Jobstown community centre by Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes and Labour’s Pat Rabbitte as they took on staff and volunteers from the local Childhood Development Initiative.
Warning! If you are eating your breakfast, you may want to skip the next paragraph.
Charlie O’Connor wore a tracksuit while Conor and Brian showed off their legs in little shorts. Pat Rabbitte did neither.
As the heroic quartet puffed and sweated their way around the court, it was Pat who cut a peculiar dash among his fellow athletes. For Pat played wearing his ordinary shoes, a navy suit, white shirt and red tie.
In an eventual concession to galloping heat-stroke, he took off the jacket.
“Surprisingly, we won the match,” one of the participants told us afterwards.
“They were all very fit women.” Such chivalry.
New arrival in Ring house overshadows Lisbon
The Mouth of Mayo has been unusually quiet of late. Some unkind people were saying this is because it would suit Michael Ring to see Mayo reject the Lisbon Treaty once more, thus embarrassing his big constituency rival, Enda Kenny.
But Michael assures us that he’s been hitting the doorsteps assiduously in recent weeks, campaigning for a Yes vote. But he’s been also distracted by some very good news – the arrival of his first grandchild.
“A gorgeous little fella!” boomed Deputy Ring down the phone to us yesterday from Ballinrobe. “I’m only delighted!”
Rory is the name of the new arrival, welcomed into the world by delighted parents Austin and Suzanne McGreal. We can only hope baby Rory doesn’t embrace the art of noise with the same alacrity as his granddaddy, or else they’ll never get a night’s sleep.
And the winners are . . .
Another referendum over, bar the shouting.Time for some referendum awards.
The notice-box award for intelligent argument goes to Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair boss who thought he could get away with a flimsy grasp of the Lisbon question by repeating the same few soundbites with some potty-mouth comments thrown in as a distraction.
He dismissed the No side as “unemployable f*****g headbangers” and his description of Joe Higgins, Patricia McKenna and Declan Ganley as Dana wannabes didn’t improve with frequent retelling.
The Hold Me Coat Award goes to Proinsias De Rossa and Declan Ganley, who almost had to be dug out of each other following a heated exchange of views on a radio show last Sunday morning. The row continued outside the Newstalk studios, but everyone involved is absolutely adamant that a punch wasn’t thrown and that’s good enough for us.
The Leap Frog Award for Going Forward goes to Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.
His robust performance as Fianna Fáil campaign director knocked rival Brian Lenihan off the top of the leadership charts and, depending on today’s result, may see him wrest best boy status from the Minister for Finance in the FF succession stakes.
The Strong, Silent Yes Man award goes to Minister Dick Roche. The Lesser-Spotted Dick endured his enforced silence during the campaign with good grace, probably because his name is now figuring in the ever growing list of possibles for the plum job of EU commissioner.
The I’m Walking Backwards for Lisbon award goes to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who fought an “outdoor” campaign and never tired of telling everybody that he will have walked 20,000km, or something like that, by the time its all over.
The Most Unexpected Reason to Vote Yes award goes to artist and People’s Movement spokesman Robert Ballagh. He said that voting Yes could bring professionalism to the GAA. Yesterday morning, there were reports of minor injuries among staff in certain polling stations after they were knocked to the ground by inter-county stars stampeding inside to say Yes.
The Don’t Blame Us award goes to Siptu president Jolly Jack O’Connor. We hear Jack has been telling people that if Lisbon is not carried, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary’s intervention will be the reason. The visceral, rage-inducing hatred he engenders in working class communities will drive them out in their droves to vote No, he says. It will have had nothing to do with fiery union bosses leading disaffected workers up to the top of the hill in the run-up to the vote, and then leaving them there to nurse their anger in the privacy of a polling booth.
The Never Say Never Again award is shared by Declan “I will not be involved in the second Lisbon campaign, I’ve said that upfront” Ganley and Brian “There is no Plan B” Cowen.
The Best Elvis Impersonator to advocate a No Vote award goes to Mark Leen from Kerry, aka, Emerald Elvis. Mark rewrote Return to Sender – “Return to sender/We’re posting no/No to Lisbon and the EU zone.” He can be seen in full regalia on YouTube singing his song outside the Graceland style gates of his home in Tralee.
Best Spoof of a Cóir Poster award goes to the one which claimed: “90% of Europeans are Bleedin’ Foreigners. Vote No.”