Bad week for Mercs; Sargent's a good apple; the crimes of Eamon Ryan; Declan Ganley's biography and his star-spangled banner; book of Dáil speeches
IT'S BEEN a very bad week for that expensive political warhorse - the top of the range black Mercedes.
There was the terrible incident of Bertie's Merc, which would have went up in smoke on Wednesday night if it hadn't been for the quick-thinking of a Turkish restaurateur from Tullamore.
Then there was poor Enda Kenny, temporarily without the services of his driver, deciding to chauffeur himself into the Dáil.
The Fine Gael leader usually relies upon the very excellent Liam to get him to his engagements on time. However, on Tuesday morning, Enda found himself behind the wheel of the Fine Gael Merc.
Seldom is wonderful, and it appears Inda Kinny discovered his inner boy racer.
On his way through the Merrion Street entrance to Leinster House, a trip made hundreds of times by the rock steady Liam Coady, Enda revved up and belted over a speed hump, tearing the exhaust pipe and its housing out of the car.
That'll put a dent in the Mount Street petty cash.
As for Bertie, he was oblivious to the fact that his State car was on fire on Wednesday night because he was in the St Stephen's Green Centre launching a book. Every cloud has a silver lining, because novelist Deirdre Purcell and her latest opus got loads more publicity than might ordinarily have been expected.
There was nobody minding the car, because his Garda driver was busy pushing poor Bertie, his plastered leg and wheelchair, into Hughes and Hughes Bookshop. (Next week, Bertie, who would never have allowed the economy to go down the tubes in his day, will be rescuing abandoned puppies.)
Okan Kiraz, who runs The Aquarium Restaurant in Tullamore, Co Offaly, says he was passing the St Stephen's Green Centre at the time when he noticed smoke coming from beneath the car. "I passed by and looked back, and saw flames. Nobody was doing anything. There were people standing around just watching it," Okan told us.
"I couldn't believe they were doing nothing. I though the car might explode. I ran into the newsagent on the corner and asked for a fire extinguisher. The flames were getting much higher, but I managed to put them out. There was still smoke coming from underneath, from what looked like a black rubbish bag. I pulled it out and used what was left in the extinguisher on it. Then I brought it back and said it was empty and they should ask whoever owned the car to get them a new one." He says he didn't know it was Bertie Ahern's car until he saw the news.
"I couldn't understand why people were doing nothing about the fire. In Turkey, people would try to help." Maybe, unlike Okan, they knew it was Bertie's car? Meanwhile, back in Main Street, Tullamore, after his heroics, Okan and his partner are busy running their restaurant, which is three months old. He says they asked local politician Brian Cowen to do the official opening, but his office replied he was too busy with the economy.
So now, he's wondering if Bertie might return the favour and come down to Biffo's backyard to do an official opening. He has been known to do the odd one.
Let the juice loose
Trevor Sargent only has the one apple tree.
But it's been a very good season for apples, so by this autumn, the Minister for Food and Farmers' Markets was up to his oxters in Cox's Pippins. (Actually, he wasn't. They were of the old Scottish variety, James Grieves.) He resolved not to let them go to waste, bought himself a press and proceeded to put old James Grieves through the wringer. The result was a lovely drop of sweet yet tart organic juice.
Just enough for a bottle.
The former leader of the Greens was so proud of the result, he decided to take his apple juice to Newbridge in Co Kildare, where he was due to open a new Farmers' Market.
It was a lovely occasion with people plaiting rhubarb and knitting their own yoghurt and all that sort of thing.
A jazz band played as Trevor visited the stalls, chatting up potatoes and squeezing tomatoes. His humour was doubly boosted by the knowledge that there has been a surge in the popularity of farmers' markets around the country, with over 140 of them up and running now.
Sargent decided it was time to let the juice loose. "I brought it along as a gift, by way of a toast to the Newbridge Farmers' Market," he said. "I picked and washed the apples myself and pressed them the night before." Glasses were produced and a happy Trevor dispensed the precious nectar.
It went down rather well. You can view him with his apple juice on trevorsargent.ie. Like we say, he's very proud. But that isn't the end of the story. Last week his department was contacted by an Environmental Health Officer from Fingal County Council.
"The official asked to talk to me privately because the matter might be embarrassing. When I heard that, I didn't know what was going on. I was subsequently told the health officer wanted to know if it was true that I was distributing unpasteurised apple juice around Co Kildare. I had to reassure them that I was not distributing apple juice on a grand scale." It seems an anonymous complaint had been made about the Minister and the condition of his juice.
"It's hard to know what the motivation was - it was certainly ill-informed. There is no requirement to pasteurise apple juice, it isn't a dairy product. What I was doing was perfectly legal. The whole incident beggars belief."
Ryan dishes dirt
While Trevor acted within the law with his apples, his Green Party colleague, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan, confessed to a criminal act during the week.
Eamon decided to come clean while he was launching a book about soil science in UCD. It may not make the Christmas bestsellers, but Quickening the Soil by Dr Jim Collins, a retired lecturer in the UCD agriculture department, is a handsome volume.
Ryan was very taken by it. Which brought about his confession. He has an allotment in Goatstown, Dublin, which is his pride and joy. Recently, in the dead of night, he stole a load of Dublin City Council topsoil which he had noticed lying near the allotments. He dug it into his patch, and then cycled home under cover of darkness.
Given the nefarious purpose of his enterprise, the Minister could hardly have asked his Garda driver to give him a lift.
The Life of Ganley
Hot on the heels of his authorised biography of Biffo, journalist Jason O'Toole has netted another big fish in the life story stakes.
Two publishing houses are bidding for the rights to his biography of Libertas founder, Declan Ganley. O'Toole, who was among the guests at Ganley's dinner in honour of the Czech president on Tuesday night, confirmed yesterday that he is to write the authorised story of the Galway-based businessman.
The Hot Press hack is meeting his latest subject next week to discuss the project. It seems he struck up a rapport with Declan Ganley after he interviewed him for the magazine. His route to bagging the Brian Cowen biography was exactly the same.
"I've no publication date yet, but it will be sometime next year," said the Dublin-born, Mullingar-based writer. Asked why he thinks the controversial Ganley chose him for the job, Jason is at pains to point out that the profile he did for Hot Press didn't shirk the hard questions.
This may be because some reviewers and commentators expressed the view that his Brian Cowen biography was a little soft on its subject. The two men have remained in close contact since the book was published.
Unflagging Europhile
As for that dinner in the Shelbourne, it seems a good time was had by all. Host Declan Ganley, who doesn't drink, made sure the wine flowed, while there was no stinting on the champagne during the pre-dinner reception. None of your cheap fizz either.
The bubbly, we've been informed, was "very decent". Ditto, the entertainment, which was top notch, with Micheál Ó Suilleabháin in dazzling form and a lively troupe of set-dancers living up to their name: Hell for Leather.
The following morning newspaper reports appeared of the event. The guest list was published. So was the menu.
The media invitees appeared, in the main, to be drawn from representatives of British-based publications who take a Eurosceptic line and Irish journalists who argued against the Lisbon Treaty.
On Thursday night, a number of guests were surprised to receive a rather curt e-mail from Declan Ganley, pointly stating that neither Libertas nor the Shelbourne had leaked the guest list to the media. As it was such a nice occasion, why should that make any difference?
Meanwhile, as Declan Ganley gears up to take Libertas into Europe, he has invited many overseas journalists to visit him in his Galway residence, Moyne Park. There is a great deal of interest in Declan Ganley in the European media following his masterful handling of the successful anti-treaty campaign.
Footage from a German current affairs programme is currently doing the rounds in media circles. It is taken from Tagesthemen, a nightly news programme similar to BBC2's Newsnight.
The fun bit comes when Declan Ganley is filmed in his office unscrewing a large American flag from its stand, rolling it up and hiding it under his desk before commencing an interview with a German television crew.
The voice-over goes: "One thing is clear about Ganley's closeness to America - he wants to hide it. When a reporter from Deutsche Welle went to interview Ganley, the American flag had to be put away first. He presents himself as a proud European and the flag doesn't fit into this picture." Those German's can forget about any more invites to Galway, or dinner in Dublin.
The cúpla focail
Brian Cowen's embrace of the Irish language has moved many Oireachtas members to brush up on their own cuplá focail.
A number of TDs and Senators have been attending weekly Irish classes in Leinster House, getting stuck into their lessons on Thursday mornings before Dáil and Seanad business begins.
Their teacher is Máirín de Brún, daughter of a former senator, the late Séamus de Brún and sister of Tadhg de Brún, floor manager in RTÉ.
The classes are streamed in order of ability. The "A-team" include junior minister Billy Kelleher, his party colleague, Margaret Conlon, Fine Gael TD Ulick Burke and his FG colleagues in the Seanad, Jerry Buttimer and Joe O'Reilly.
"At the moment, we're focusing on trying to use some Irish phrases when we speak in the house," says O'Reilly, who is a former primary school teacher and says he enrolled to brush up on his rusty Irish. "There are quite a few people who have signed up. I think it's a great idea."
Echo chamber
Next Wednesday, former Labour Party press officer Paul Daly is launching his book on major political events since the foundation of the Dáil.
Michel D Higgins is doing the honours in Dubray Books on Dublin's Grafton Street. He doesn't have a State car to go up in flames but perhaps author Paul might set fire to Michael D's tweed jacket instead.It would probably burn longer that your average Merc.
Creating Ireland uses extracts from Dáil proceedings to illustrate how our TDs reacted to a changing Ireland. The extracts chart turbulent times. They include Robert Barton's emotional speech during the Treaty debates detailing the pressure on the Treaty delegation in the hours before the document was signed.
There's Kevin O'Higgins trenchant defence of the government's policy of executions in 1922. A young John A Costello predicts that the Blueshirts will take power in Ireland, just like the brown shirts had in Germany.
Seán Lemass charts a new economic course for Irish society in the late 1950s. Garret FitzGerald's "flawed pedigree" speech when Haughey was elected taoiseach in 1979 is also noted.
More recently, we remember Dick Spring's stinging attack on the political career of Charlie Haughey and Bertie Ahern's attack on the socialism espoused by Joe Higgins.
Just to show that Brian Lenihan's Budget woes aren't without precedent, here's what FF finance minister Gene Fitzgerald had to say when he introduced his 1981 budget: "While international economic prospects this year are uncertain, there are grounds for optimism. The worst phase of the recession has passed and a gradual upturn should soon be under way." Despite the optimistic tone, by June unemployment had soared to 123,000 and by year end the budget deficit was 62 per cent higher than projected.
And with the demise of the PDs, here's Neil Blaney on the role played by Michael McDowell when he wasn't a deputy during the 1989-1981 FF-PD coalition: "Regarding the Progressive Democrats, I will not mention any names because I believe it is not fair to mention names of people outside the House . . . I refer to the ayatollah who is not in this House but who controls the Progressive Democrats.
"It is an extraordinary situation. A man who is not a deputy is calling the shots as to what the Government will do with the coalition and whether they will survive. It is bloody ludicrous. The little ayatollah should be told where he gets off."
It took a while, but it happened in the end.
Hot Dog
Finally, back to Bertie's burning car and this column's deeply held belief that the old jokes are the best.
Bertie pulls up at the Green and is approached by a lock-hard waving a rolled up newspaper. "I'll keep an eye on your car, boss," he says to the former taoiseach.
Bertie points to the Garda Alsatian sitting to attention in the back seat.
"Don't worry, son," he says with a smile. "Rommel here will look after dat." To which the lock-hard replies: "And is your German pal any good at puttin' out fires?"