By Mary Hannigan
Dana suffers stage fright
Poor Rosemary "Dana" Scallon had one of those "I beg thee earth, open up and devour me" moments on a live radio debate last week when she was asked to name some housing estates in the Knocknacarra area of her Galway West constituency. Note: she was nominated for the election by folk who claim to be an umbrella group for Knocknacarra's residents' associations. Unfortunately, stage fright got the better of Dana and she couldn't remember any. Luckily, for Ireland's sake, she wasn't similarly struck in Amsterdam all those years ago when she sat on that Eurovision stool, otherwise we could have been treated to: "All kinds of everything remind me of . . . of . . .?"
Niamh's finest hour
Labour's Niamh Bhreathnach was valiant enough to partake in RTÉ's Xit Poll programme last week, during which she was asked a number of thorny questions. "What do you say to an Arts student on graduation?" "Err, congratulations," she suggested. "No, two fries and a Big Mac, please." Her finest moment, though, came when she was asked to complete the first line of the chorus of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. "We don't need no . . ?" "Err, satisfaction," she offered. Superb, anyone who is unfamiliar with the works of Pink Floyd is alright by us. Mind you, considering she's a former Minister for Education it's probably just as well she wasn't caught on camera singing "we don't need no education, we don't need no thought control".
Another update needed
Speaking of Dana. In the latest in our series of "websites that could do with a bit of updating" we noted that the last press releases issued by the MEP, according to www. danascallon.ie, were in June 2000 when, amongst other things, she stated her opposition to VAT on stamps. Since then? Divil a whisper . . .
Neighbourly dilemma
Margaret Looney is a resident of Muckross Grove, Killarney. Her neighbour on one side is Labour's Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, on the other Fine Gael's Sheila Casey, both candidates in the election. What are their calling Margaret? Peggy in the middle.
Wide web
Oddest image found on a party website in the last week? The award goes to Sinn Féin's Donegal South West internet site which, apart from providing information on their two candidates in the constituency, Pearse Doherty and Tom Dignam, features a doctored (em, we assume) photo of the Queen Mother dressed in a Celtic shirt in the crowd at Parkhead (aka Paradise), accompanied by the caption "Paradise . . . how did she get in? There's hope for us poor souls yet".
Having read in the Limerick Leader that Willie O'Dea (above) was celebrating his 2,500th visitor to his website we tried in vain to become visitor 2,501. The problem? The address was given as wwww.willieodea.ie. Unlike Willie, we don't have access to the World Wide Wide Web.
Who's got the password?
We are reassured by promises from the Department of the Environment that the electronic voting system to be used in Dublin North, Meath and Dublin West is 100 per cent accident-proof and that absolutely nothing could go wrong on election day. Mind you, that's what they said in Mali recently before the count had to be suspended when a computer technician was hospitalised after a car accident. The problem? He was the only person with the password to access the election centre's computers.
Campaign quote of the week
Mother of two: "Keep the money coming."
Charlie McCreevy: "And you keep up production."
Colourful candidate
Conor Halpin (independent candidate in Waterford). Apart from making his name on WLR FM as "Sonny Dunphy", the cutest of cute hoor politicians, he has, says the Waterford News, "become a hit with children as Krusty The Klown at parties all over Ireland and. for a long time too, he has been Waterford's kiss-o-gram king, bringing entertainment to Waterford that would not be here without him".
Indigestible ballot
We sympathised with the man in the Late Late Show audience last Friday night who complained that the introduction of electronic voting in Ireland would no longer allow him to deliberately spoil his vote, which he does in protest against something or other. The only way we can console him is to point out that electronic voting doesn't present him with half as many problems as the Canadian Edible Ballot Society. Two years ago, two of their members, residents of Edmonton, were charged under the Canada Elections Act ("no person shall wilfully alter, deface or destroy a ballot") after being accused of taking a blender to the polling station, using their ballots as milkshake ingredients, and then drinking them. Not even a truckload of tablets will cure their indigestion once Edmonton introduces computerised ballots.
Red rose for a blue shirt
At last, some good news for Fine Gael in an opinion poll. "Vote for the 'Sexiest Party Leader' and we'll send him/her a single red rose," promised www.online.ie last week. The results? The Socialist Party's Joe Higgins (below) lost his deposit with just 1 per cent of the vote, with Ruairí Quinn and Trevor Sargent not faring a whole lot better. Mary Harney came in at fourth while Gerry Adams pipped Bertie Ahern to second place. Michael Noonan, though, romped home with a whopping 36 per cent of the vote and will, we predict, be heard singing "I'm Too Sexy For My Blueshirt" in the final week of the campaign.