Fine Gael escaped lightly on the protest front in Castlebar last week.
Delegates had been expecting to run the gauntlet as they made their way into the Royal Theatre, but the small number of demonstrators who gathered at lunchtime on Saturday didn’t stick around for long.
We can’t blame them: it was a very cold and very wet day.
In the afternoon, the atmosphere was relaxed around the venue. The unimpressive ring of steel was manned by a handful of bored security men and a few policemen – their colleagues, presumably, keeping warm indoors in the absence of any action.
In the Dáil on Tuesday, Ruth Coppinger painted a different picture. “The Taoiseach had to surround himself with not one but two rings of steel, 10ft-high fences and a phalanx of gardaí and security.”
But in reality, Fine Gael’s conference was a very tame affair – in every way.
The Labour Party, on the other hand, may have a more difficult time of it. There were a few protesters at the gates of the INEC Killarney conference centre when party members arrived, but thousands are expected to muster today when party leader and Tánaiste Joan Burton delivers her keynote address. The fact there’s a big GAA match in town tomorrow will tempt some Dublin-based activists to make a weekend of it, taking in the protests ahead of the game.
Joan came down early for the event, visiting the Cill Rialaig Arts Centre in Ballinskelligs on Thursday. Yesterday, she toured Fitzgerald Stadium and met people involved in a community employment scheme. Members of the Dr Crokes and Killarney Legion GAA clubs showed her the Sam Maguire. Just in case Dubs supporter Joan had forgotten it’s back in residence in Kerry.
Minister Brendan Howlin was also out and about. On Thursday, he met with business groups and Kerry County Council chief Moira Murrell. Yesterday, he took a look at progress on the Tralee-Fenit greenway before making his way to the conference.
The Tánaiste is hoping the event will be incident free. Memories are fresh in Labour of the ugly scenes outside their 2012 conference in Galway, when thousands of protesters broke through the Garda cordon (using a coffin, among other things) and the conference went into lockdown.
This week, Burton said that while she respected their right to protest, she hoped people in Killarney would respect her party’s right to hold their conference. She got her answer from Paul Murphy and Coppinger of the Anti-Austerity Alliance.
They accused Labour of trying to “denigrate” anti-water charge protesters. “Labour broke an election promise not to implement water charges but Joan Burton calls on anti-water charge protesters to ‘respect’ Labour’s conference and Minister for Water Charges Alan Kelly uses derogatory, Thatcherite insults to protesters,” said Coppinger.
Murphy dismissed the conference as “all about holiday speechifying” with the event nothing more than “a group therapy session”.
Which just about sums up all political conferences. Portrait painter makes exhibition of eminent heads No sign yet of a portrait of Brian Cowen appearing in the gallery of former taoisigh in Leinster House.
Some have been done already, but they wouldn’t really be suitable for hanging outside the Dáil chamber because he isn’t wearing any clothes.
It’s six years since Conor Casby made national headlines when his unflattering portraits of the then taoiseach turned up hanging on the walls of the National Gallery and the RHA.
They weren’t in the best of taste – he’s holding a loo roll in one and a pair of underpants in the other. But the ensuing outrage from Government Buildings, which led to a Garda investigation and an on-air apology from RTÉ after one of the paintings was shown on the nine o’clock News, said more than Casby’s creations ever could.
He hasn’t done many politically themed paintings since. But two of them are for sale in a fundraising exhibition today.
Enda Kenny and Joan Burton are the politicians, with Joan looking rather vexed and Enda gazing out purposefully from above his clown’s dickie-bow and braces.
Painting is a hobby for Casby. He works as a school completion programme co-ordinator in Dublin’s inner city, which is a convoluted way of saying his job is to help and encourage young people to stay on in school for as long as possible.
His office is in Mount Carmel Secondary School in King’s Inns Street, but he also works in Stanhope Street (Joan Burton’s alma mater), Brunswick Street and a number of primary schools, including Mary’s Place, where Independent TD Finian McGrath was once principal of the boys school.
Casby’s new paintings are part of an art exhibition in King’s Inns Street, where more than 150 pictures are on display (and for sale) today until 4.30pm.
The 200-year-old school, which is next to Bolton Street DIT, has seen a surge in enrolments in recent years with 355 pupils representing more than 30 nationalities on the register.
Most of the girls live within walking distance.
“We’re putting on five extra classrooms and the money from this exhibition will go towards this,” principal Gerry Cullen proudly tells us.
Other exhibitors include Judy Glynn, Jim Kilgarriff, Thelma Mansfield and Lorraine Fenlon.
Joan Burton’s portrait includes a quotation from James Connolly, while Enda in his colourful clown colours is accompanied by a Frank Zappa quote: “Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.”
As for Denis O’Brien, he’s looking very macho and handsome in his treatment. It comes with a quote (entirely made-up) from journalist Sam Smyth: “A newspaper is a leaflet to advertise its owners.”
We contacted Smyth, who was chuffed. “I wish I had said that. I certainly will in the future.”
The artist has a novel way of pricing his work. He calculates how many hours he worked on a painting and asks buyers to pay whatever they would earn for a corresponding number of hours.
Maybe King’s Inns Street will be lucky – Denis might take a shine to his painting (or disappear it).
Conor Casby worked on his portrait for 20 hours. What would billionaire Denis earn for the same amount of time?
It would probably cover the cost of the new classrooms for the oldest secondary school in Dublin city centre.
TD Maureen O’Sullivan is a past pupil.
And so am I. Ged gets limelight despite low ranking Labour junior minister Ged Nash faced a dilemma this week. Having worked for months on the new Low Pay Commission, it was finally due its formal launch on Thursday.
But before that happened, he got a lesson in the political pecking order.
His line Minister in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, was also going to attend the launch and deliver a speech.
Then his party leader and Tánaiste, Joan Burton, declared she wasn’t going to miss it either. Another speech, so.
It wasn’t long before word arrived from the Taoiseach’s office. Enda was coming along too, speech in tow.
What to do?
Ged appointed himself MC for the event, which was held at a community resource centre on Dublin’s Pearse Street. He spoke at the beginning, at the end and introduced each of his illustrious speakers.
So at least he wasn’t squeezed out.
Perhaps Minister for Jobs Bruton might consider doing likewise. Anytime he has a significant announcement, the Taoiseach jumps in and takes over.
The launch was top heavy with senior Government people, but fewer than a dozen protesters turned up for the 9am launch of the commission, which has been set up to assess the national minimum wage rate.
Among them was a rejuvenated Chris Andrews. The former Fianna Fáil TD is now a Sinn Féin councillor and the party’s candidate in Dublin Bay South in the next general election.
