Young Simon Harris looked very happy on the front bench. Particularly when he found himself a piece of paper and a biro. The Taoiseach was talking away about the floods – net rainfall percentages and that sort of stuff. And then there's the river Shannon.
Sure they’ve been talking in the Dáil about the situation with the Shannon since 1948, declared Enda, as his junior Minister gave him a long, searching look. 1948? Young Simon was probably wondering if his boss was in Leinster House back then too.
The Opposition is not happy with the way the Government responded to the recent flooding crisis. The Fianna Fáil leader pointed to "a lack of preparation" when disaster struck. This is rather unfair. The Coalition was more than prepared to address the issue yesterday. To keep everyone happy on their first day back after the Christmas break, a five-hour flood debate was scheduled. It was just talk, shrugged Micheál Martin. If Enda and Joan and the rest of the Cabinet really meant business, they would have had legislation to do with the Shannon ready for debate, he noted.
But Enda was on top of the situation. It’s a fierce big job, sorting out the flooding, he explained. “The answer to the problem is multi-faceted.” Furthermore “an effective working strategy is what’s needed here”.
Graft of local farmers
Martin got on with naming all the places he visited over the Christmas in his wellies. From Portumna to Clonlara and Tubber, along with a wide variety of towns in Co Cork. If it hadn’t been for the dedication and graft of local farmers and contractors, the situation around the country would have been far worse, he sighed. At this point, young Simon began scribbling furiously. He’s very bright.
He passed a note across to the Taoiseach. Enda glanced at it before he began his reply. “I am not God,” he declared. And Simon sat back, looking pleased with himself. “I cannot predict the extent of the rainfall.”
It seems the Taoiseach was getting the same reception as the Fianna Fáil leader when he did his tour of the flooded areas. “I was down in Craughwell the other day,” he recalled. “People very distraught.”
One wonders how many politicians got the Charlie Bird treatment when they waded into somebody else’s chaos? As TDs tell their flood stories, that famous old footage of the RTÉ reporter in a boat on the flooded streets of Bray comes to mind. As he neared a man up to his oxters in water outside his ruined home, Bird shouted: “How do you feel?” The reply left no room for doubt. “F*** off, Charlie!”
Meanwhile, Micheál Martin kept getting asked the same question on his watery travels. “Who is in charge?” Damned if he could tell them. In fact, he didn’t seem too sure of the answer either at a big Fianna Fáil poster launch outside Leinster House yesterday morning.
This happened just before another big Government launch, called Pathway to Power. Or is that Pathway to Jobs? Doesn't matter, they share the same objective. So the hacks assembled on the footpath on Merrion Street. A big ad-mobile trundled up. Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher decided to act as master of ceremonies, before his leader and a handpicked bunch of young, photogenic election candidates arrived to take the glory in front of the new poster.
And what a brilliant billboard. The Fianna Fáil crowd was certainly very taken by it. The Fine Gael crowd was over the moon when they heard about it. Ecstatic when they saw it. The journalists and photographers looked at the effort and some of them started to laugh. For on this Fianna Fáil ad, there was a big photograph of Enda Kenny – a fairly nice smiley one. With a large Fine Gael logo on it too. There's quite a lot of writing for people who might be passing it in a moving vehicle or on a galloping horse. "Eh, it looks like a Fine Gael poster," repeated the nonplussed hacks to a highly indignant Micheál, who said it was pointing to broken election promises. He thought it was very good. It's not.
“Am I supposed to be terrified?” sniggered the Taoiseach, before happily listing broken promises on Micheál’s watch when he was a Fianna Fáil minister for health.
Front bench
Meanwhile, back in the Dáil, the floods hadn’t receded.
Labour
Minister
Ann Phelan
was joined on the front bench by Joan Burton. The last time the pair were together was in a canoe on the river Nore in Co Kilkenny, before they both fell in.
From the adjoining benches, Labour's Dominic Hannigan and Arthur Spring laughed across at the two Ministers, Dominic making a boat shape with his arms and rocking from side to side.
Sinn Féin wanted to talk about Moore Street. The Taoiseach annoying Gerry Adams in the process. "So, the issue is whether Deputy Adams agrees that it is the right and proper thing for the State, the national government of Ireland, to have purchased these dwellings," he began. Gerry wasn't having that: "The State government, not the national government of Ireland. Catch yourself on," he snapped. The next few months will be fun.
