After a six-month campaign and a hard-fought May election the politicians had been looking forward to a long summer break with the recess continuing until October 9th. It is not to be. At least two recalls of the Dáil are planned and the Seanad elections are in full swing.
The first recall will be later this month to take note of today's Ansbacher Report. Labour, the Greens and Sinn Féin are gearing up for an attack on the Government, but for Fine Gael the situation is more difficult. FG names are on the list, so eyes will be on new leader Enda Kenny to see how he handles the situation. The planning and donation scandals of recent years caused difficulties for his predecessors, John Bruton and Michael Noonan.
The Dáil will be back again for two weeks from September 4th to discuss the second referendum on the Nice Treaty in October. The issue will dominate politics for the next four months as the Government and the main opposition parties, as well as the social partners, strive to ensure a Yes vote.
The politicians are tired, and short of money. They are restricted, post-election, in raising more cash from donors and, under the McKenna judgment, unable to use Exchequer funds to finance the referendum campaign. But funds have to come from somewhere; hence a major appeal to the corporate sector is expected and a much more pro-active role by the business community, including farmers and trade unionists, is anticipated.
While the Government's determination to get Nice passed cannot be over-emphasised, it is aware of the danger of overkill and the need to tread a delicate path to avoid the accusation of bullying. Footsoldiers canvassing door to door are seen as a vital element in getting the turnout above the 34 per cent of last time and consequently outweighing the constant 18 to to 20 per cent No vote.
Thirteen of the 15 member-states have now completed the Nice ratification process. Should we say No again we will not be sanctioned, but it is feared we will have lost friends and made enemies of applicant states.
THE Presidential Standard, a gold harp on a blue background, is to fly for the first time outside the Republic when it is raised at Henley Royal Regatta tomorrow. The President, Mrs McAleese, is to present the prizes, and as Henley flies the Royal Standard when Queen Elizabeth or a member of her family are present, they requested permission to do the same on this special Irish occasion.
Áras an Uachtaráin, where the Standard flies when the President is in residence, has supplied Henley with the flag.
THE new Lord Mayor of Dublin, Labour councillor Dermot Lacey, will not be moving into the Mansion House. He has two young children and his Donnybrook home is more suitable, he says. It is just as well, since work started on the city's official residence last Tuesday, the day after his election, to get rid of dry rot and asbestos and do some refurbishment. It will take an estimated 20 weeks and cost €450,000. Lacey says he will stay there occasionally when it is ready.
He admits that it was he who vetoed a proposal that the council should lease a hotel suite for the period so that the Lord Mayor could live in the style to which the office is accustomed. It would send out the wrong signals, he said. But then he didn't know he was going to get the job.
Meanwhile, the Lord Mayor's office is operating from the Newcomen Bank at the entrance to Dublin Castle. It was the Rates Office for many years, but now its splendid interiors and elliptical Portland stone staircase are being renovated. The old bank is so convenient for City Hall and the reception rooms so beautiful that there is a suggestion it should become the Lord Mayor's official residence. The Mansion House could then become the Taoiseach's residence, with a pathway through the Department of Enterprise and into Leinster House.
Councillors, including the Lord Mayor, are determined, however, that the city should never give up the Mansion House. It has been owned by the local authority for 300 years.
ONE Seanad candidate who should get a warmer welcome than most as he traverses the country seeking votes is SIPTU president, former MEP and much else besides, Des Geraghty. He is promising councillors money and, to add to the Government's benchmarking problems, is threatening to organise them as well. Geraghty, an ICTU nominee for the Labour panel, says that councillors should not only have better conditions but also paid leave for carrying out their civic duties. And it's not a gimmick, he says; he will argue for paid leave in future partnership agreements and for the establishment of a proper forum to review councillors' pay and enable them to pursue grievances. If elected, he will give his Seanad salary to SIPTU.
Meanwhile the "Geraghty Bowl", the SIPTU president's planned new 410-seat theatre in the old Liberty Hall auditorium and a 90 seat-theatre on the first floor, is due to open at the end of August, in time for the Dublin Theatre Festival. The small theatre will be called the Connolly Venue and the social hall in the basement will be the Larkin Venue. Not surprisingly with those names, it is designed as a cultural centre for trade unionists and inner-city groups.
MARGUERITE McDaid, the estranged wife of former cabinet minister James McDaid, now junior minister at the Department of Transport, is completing her autobiography. Flight Out of Darkness is the working title of the book, to be published in November by John O'Connor of Blackwater Press. It will, says O'Connor, tell how, at the age of 50, Marguerite McDaid, who was used to rubbing shoulders with prime ministers, presidents and celebrities, fled Letterkenny for London with her young son to pick up the pieces of her life.
"Though cast into the world of unscrupulous London landlords, precarious job-hunting and an erratic dating scene, a new stronger, fulfilled woman emerges," O'Connor says. McDaid is now back in Co Donegal running a meditation centre.
O'Connor has the enviable knack of publishing a bestseller for each Christmas. McDaid's book, he says, is an account of her life as a politician's wife, which raises the lid on the private demons that gripped her husband and ultimately led to the end of her marriage.
He predicts another Number One.
THE Dáil has commenced its official summer break without the issue of more rights and time for the smaller political groups being resolved. There is a determination on the part of the Government, and to a lesser extent in Fine Gael and Labour, to marginalise the minorities (Greens, Sinn Féin and Independents) on the grounds that they hold up business and have had too much power in the past. Already, trouble is starting. In the short session since the election many quorums have been called and disruption has ensued. The Government doesn't mind so much, as the delays reduce the time ministers spend on their feet defending policy, but FG and Labour are furious at the time-wasting.
The disruption seems set to continue in the autumn. Some are glad to be out of what looks like a difficult Dáil. Not the politicians who lost seats but the Leinster House staff, dozens of whom have taken the Oireachtas package. One such is Tom Butler who, after nine years in the Labour Party press office, wants a move and is looking for a new job.
AUSTIN Currie is the only person to have been elected as a member of parliament for both Stormont and the Dáil and to have been a minister in both jurisdictions. Now, having lost his seat in Dublin Mid-West, he is to write his autobiography. From the time he left Queen's University with a degree in history and politics in 1963, he has been embroiled in political life North and South.
Currie, now long settled in Lucan, Co Dublin, is a native of Coalisland, Co Tyrone. He was elected to Stormont as a Nationalist MP in 1964 and four years later took part in the Caledon sit-in. He wasa central figure in the Civil Rights marches, the SDLP, Sunningdale and the discussions with Sinn Féin.
In 1989, having being approached by Garret FitzGerald, he won a Dáil seat in Dublin West. He was the Fine Gael candidate for the presidency in 1990, when Mary Robinson won, and later minister for children in the rainbow coalition.
Currie hopes his memoir will contribute to historical knowledge. He believes serious efforts are being made by provisional republicans to rewrite the history of the past 30 years and to play down the violence and the negative effects it had on political development.
"What was accomplished at Sunningdale was a better deal from the point of view of nationalist Ireland than the Good Friday agreement," he says.
At crucial stages throughout his career he made good notes, he says, and he believes he is the only one with such a record of Sunningdale.
Now his only commitment is not to run for public office again. Otherwise, he is open to opportunities and intends writing and speaking. It takes a long time, he says, to disengage from a political life.