MacGill Summer School resumes its annual business of putting the world to rights, writes MIRIAM LORD
WE HAD been without direction for some time, stumbling along, not quite sure where to go.
Rambling a bit – rather like Enda Kenny on Sunday night, who produced enough homespun yarns to knit himself a full-length coat.
So. Rudderless and on the rocks. But as this nation searches for the right path – the path to recovery – there is help at hand.
It’s called the MacGill Summer School. Motto: “Setting the World to Right for 31 Glorious Years.” Last year they undertook a job of work called “Reforming the Republic.” This year’s heavy lifting goes by the title of “Transforming Ireland”. Somebody has to do it and Joe Mulholland’s eager if elderly band of Transformers are keen to get stuck in.
But back to the business in hand. So how did we, as a people, lose our way and why did Fianna Fáil take a wrong turn and fall over the cliff? Anyone of the summer school specialists in Glenties this week would be able to tell you that.
It is because we sat on our “moral compass” and broke the needle. Fortunately, director Mulholland has drafted in a lot of economists and business types to tell us how to make things better. This is just as well, because there are not as many politicians throwing themselves on to the platform as in previous years. Senior Ministers are particularly thin on the ground.
This might be something to do with the fact that, barring accidents, there should not be a general election in the offing for a long time so they do not need the publicity.
Some of the less experienced ministers are probably frightened to travel. During his address on opening night, the Taoiseach stressed he is keeping a tight rein on his Cabinet team. “Noses to the grindstone”, as he put it.
No more skites to Donegal.
Minister of State Brian Hayes was dispatched to keep the media happy yesterday. As he was interviewed last evening on the pavement outside the Highland Hotel, his chest puffed out a little more each time he was addressed as “Minister”. Not that he was getting any ideas above his station. When asked what approach the Government might take today to the proposed introduction of a household charge, the Minister of State deflated rapidly and declared “I never pre-empt a Cabinet decision: it’s way beyond my pay grade.” Speaking of which, salaries entered the mix during yesterday afternoon’s session on banking and the economy. Either that or the discussion had suddenly veered into the area of agriculture. Given that it was Matthew Elderfield, Financial Regulator and deputy governor of the Central Bank, who raised the subject of cap reform we probably thought he was talking about farm subsidies.
In fact, he was returning to a subject he has raised before – the removal of the salary cap on bank bosses. “I think we need some fresh blood now” said Matthew, uttering a line which will have cheered the bats nesting in the folds of the heavy stage curtains.
“With the cap in place, we won’t be able to get that” he continued, as the disappointed bats went back to sleep.
Cut to Minister of State Hayes, who was not so sure about removing the cap, not even if the best banker in the world should happen to pitch up in Dublin.
“Well, I don’t see that great guy,” sniffed Brian. “I’d want to see the colour of his money and the colour of his eyes before I made that decision,” he drawled, sounding like a movie hitman. Maybe he would be happier discussing removing the cap on Michael Healy-Rae.
Then he went inside to discuss “How Long and How Hard is the Way to Recovery?” It would be easier with a good moral compass.
At least Fianna Fáil Senator Averil Power understands this and she feels things are now looking on the bright side for her punctured party.
They’ve got a “new moral compass” now to go with “the new Fianna Fáil” and this delicate instrument “must never again be thrown off by the magnet of loyalty”, said Averil, making an impressive MacGill debut yesterday morning.
She was joined on the platform by hardy annuals Noel Whelan and Frank Flannery to ponder the question: “Has the Political Landscape in Ireland Changed Forever?” Fine Gael strategist Flannery quoted something he said in a speech to MacGill four years ago. These boys have been around the block. “I may have told this story to the summer school before,” confessed political pundit and former Fianna Fáil election candidate Whelan.
Not to be outdone, Averil confidently predicted she would be speaking in Glenties in 10 years’ time. Compared with the other pair, she’ll still be a novice.
The most interesting speaker in what was not exactly a crowded field was Kevin Gardiner, who is a very big noise in Barclays Wealth in London and the man who coined the phrase “the Celtic Tiger”. He has been apologising ever since, remarking yesterday that one economist suggested “I should be boiled in my own spit” for coming up with it.
On the other hand, he said the working title for the paper he wrote back in the early 1990s was: “Ireland – Growing Quickly Without Much Inflation.”
Which does not have the same ring to it.