POLITICIAN OF THE YEAR:WE CAN'T move this Christmas for political awards.
The new Endastocracy appears to be sweeping the boards.
Mind you, as Ministers aren’t even 12 months in the job, it might be a bit previous to start handing out gongs for work well done. Better to view them as a work in progress.
In fairness, it’s actually Enda himself who is winning the lion’s share of the plaudits.
This time last year was a scary period for him. Having survived persistent attacks on his character, ability and suitability, Enda Kenny knew he was likely to be Taoiseach in a matter of months, if not weeks.
Whatever he may have felt in private, Enda radiated an unshakable sense of self-belief and purpose in the run-up to the election. Yet, while Fine Gael was flying in the opinion polls, the voters remained doubtful about having him as Taoiseach.
He turned that around during the campaign. With two weeks to go to polling day, his figures shot up. A savvy – or fickle – public, realising that the man they called Inda would be leading the State after the election, quickly revised its opinion of him.
Suddenly, in the shopping centres and on the main streets, they wanted to have a word with Enda. The changeover was happening. You could see it taking place.
It was a happy transition.
He took in a record three running mates in Mayo. A week into the job and Enda was hob- nobbing in the White House with Obama, declaring that Ireland was open for business again.
He schmoozed the expats, who loved him for it. “I believe that the tomorrow imprinted on our ancestral retina is our today,” he said.
Indeed.
We even forgave the New York Timesfor calling him Edna and making him Ireland's first female Taoiseach.
Edna’s popularity has fallen in the wake of this month’s budget, but he’s still doing well. The public has taken to him.
He may have turned 60 this year, but his energy and work rate seem boundless. But then he wanted the job and appears to be loving even the worst bits of it.
What a difference a year makes.
Take this Wednesday. The Taoiseach began the day with a meeting in Government Buildings with Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin. All very nice, we hear, and no harsh words over Enda’s controversial verbal onslaught on the Vatican earlier this year.
Then, at 6.30pm, Bono paid a call. They got on like a house on fire at the recent Global Forum and have been exchanging views ever since. Bono stayed for more than two hours. We’re told they discussed a broad range of issues – “mostly political.” (It’s a pity he didn’t bring Michael Noonan in to discuss with St Bono the sanctifying graces of paying tax.) The U2 frontman presented Enda with a bottle of Inis Turk Beg whiskey – a 10-year-old single malt.
So. Here’s the thing: Why should we declare Enda Kenny our Politician of the Year, even if he deserves it? The man has more than enough to be getting on with.
No. Our winner could be someone such as Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald.
Yes, Deputy McDecibel may have a tendency to piercing loudness, but as deputy leader of her party, she has had to contend with an unreasonable level of discourtesy from Government deputies when on her feet in the chamber.
It has to be said, this is a particularly male trait. Former minister Mary Coughlan similarly suffered and Joan Burton was a martyr to the FF bullyboys when soldiering in opposition.
For all that, Mary Lou is concise and direct when she stands in for her leader, Gerry Adams, and when she takes the principal role during Tánaiste’s questions.
The boys don’t tend to shout at her half as much now because they know she’s probably going to come out with the killer populist line which they would ask, were they in the same position.
In the end, our Politician of the Year is a two-in-a-row winner: Michael Noonan.
Despite all, the Minister for Finance seems able to float above the budget criticism. He is also seen as the rock of this Government.
And, just like Taoiseach Kenny, he travelled a long and very difficult road before, finally, he got to make that budget speech.
BACKBENCHER OF THE YEAR
LOTS OF interesting people in the mix. Eamon Gilmore’s Galway East colleague Colm Keaveney hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with his leader.
Lone wolf Keaveney might just be the man to upset the return-to-power smugness of Labour’s finest when they come to Galway next year for their annual conference.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin seems to be angling himself into the conscience of the Labour Party position, although after the budget, that is becoming a hotly contested slot.
Fine Gael’s Eoghan Murphy deserves an award for suggesting a tax on sex during a pre-budget parliamentary party meeting. (He meant to call for a tax on texts.) Never mind, it gave the marvellous Michael Noonan a chance to ponder whether the charge could be levied by means of turnover tax or tax at the point of entry.
Our Backbencher of the Year is Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe, TD for Dublin Central.
There’s more than a touch of the best boy in class about Paschal, but he has proved a very safe pair of hands for the Government.
This may be his first term as a TD, but clever Deputy Donohoe has turned out to be something of a Renaissance man, who is able to talk confidently and convincingly about anything.
Definitely one to watch.
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
THIS GOES to Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett, who has exceeded expectations in the job, and then some. In time-honoured tradition, he didn’t want the position.
Cantankerous and funny, he enlivens Leaders’ Questions and the Order of Business – and he doesn’t allow much messing.
His stand-ins have taken to threatening rowdy deputies with cries of “I’ll send for the Ceann Comhairle” when things get out of hand.
Seán is also trying to modernise the way things are done in Leinster House – a difficult task in a place where rules make some people feel very important.
Special mention must also be given to Deputy Barrett’s opposite number in the Seanad, the very excellent Cathaoirleach of the Upper House, Paddy Burke.
SERVICE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AWARD
THIS ONE is shared between Labour TD Joe Costello and former Labour communications supremo, Tony Heffernan.
Joe was Michael D Higgins’s director of elections and Tony was his media handler.
Between them, during the entire presidential election campaign, they managed to confine Michael D to short answers.
They should both get a medal.
Actually, Joe got a junior ministry. (Tony has gone to the private sector.)
THE ‘HERE’S YOUR COAT, WHAT’S YOUR HURRY?’ AWARD
THIS GOES to Kevin Cardiff for being neither shy nor retiring and as a consequence he now has a fierce big job in Europe.
Kevin was kingpin in the Department of Finance during the Troubles, but when the new administration came to power it was time for a replacement general secretary. Enda’s Government prodded him off in the direction of Luxembourg and the European Court of Auditors, even though they insisted they were losing a very excellent secretary general.
He hadn’t been officially installed in the position before Michael Noonan was moving a new man into Kevin’s job. The European leg of the manoeuvre was a mere technicality – it would be rubberstamped at an EU committee meeting.
Except it wasn’t, throwing the Government’s careful plan into disarray and Labour MEP Nessa Childers into direct conflict with her senior party colleague, Proinsias De Rossa, when she said she opposed the appointment.
Everyone assumed Cardiff would withdraw his nomination at this point, but instead he took his case to a full hearing of the European Parliament. Fine Gael and Labour made sure its EU allies voted the right way this time.
People who aren’t as bright as our betters on Merrion Street wondered why the secretary general wasn’t kept on if he was such a whizz. And if he wasn’t, why was he sent off to do a very important €276,000 a year EU job? Ireland’s loss is Europe’s gain, apparently.
THE BONKERS BANNON MEMORIAL AWARD
NOW THAT Fine Gael is in power, TD James Bannon of Westmeath has been fitted with a silencer. This is in keeping with his new station in life as a Government backbencher. His tortured howls are rarely heard in the chamber now, apart from the very occasional relapse.
Mattie McGrath has taken it upon himself to assume the mantle. From Bonkers Bannon to greyhound-loving Madser McGrath – the Independent TD for Tipperary South sees it as his duty now to take umbrage on behalf of his fellow members of the Technical Group.
We hear he has declared for the commercial side of the arrangement, seeing himself as part of an impressive troika with Shane Ross and Stephen Donnelly. During group meetings, Ross and Donnelly are reportedly enthralled by Mattie’s erudite contributions on the economy.
Madser McGrath clinched the Bonkers Bannon Memorial Award with a series of impassioned speeches and interjections on the controversial subject of the septic tank charge.
You’ve heard of Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech? In years to come, Irish historians will talk of Mattie’s “rivers of shite” phase.
As he said in the House: “I have set up a Facebook page called – excuse the language – Stop the Shite, but loads of shite will be coming to Dublin.” A worthy successor.
THE LADY BRACKNELL AWARD FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EAMON
ONLY ONE winner here: the Tánaiste. As Lady B might say: “To lose one Penrose, Mr Gilmore, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both Broughan and Nulty as well looks like carelessness.”
In fairness to Eamon Gilmore, the aforementioned Willie Penrose, Tommy Broughan and Patrick Nulty were always seen as Labour’s most likely Coalition bolters. But the coming year will test the nerve of the high-minded new intake, many of whom are already privately bleating about how difficult it is to be in government during these trying times.
HISTORICAL ARTEFACT OF THE YEAR
IT COULD be Fine Gael’s “five-point plan” that figured with such monotonous regularity during February’s campaign. This was Enda’s secret weapon – he fired it about like a Ninja- throwing star and, through its indiscriminate use, successfully nailed the general election.
What were the five points? Damned if we know. Nobody remembers them now, not least the Taoiseach and his Government. They laugh with everyone else when it’s mentioned in the Dáil. Enda happily admitted more than once during the year that election promises are purely aspirational and subject to change once an election is over.
In this way, he justified a number of U-turns on specific promises pledged in public when his party was scrapping for that vital last seat in certain constituencies.
Or it could be the Fine Gael and Labour manifestos. Subject to change once election over, unforeseen circumstances, etc.
It could be Michael Fingleton’s €11,500 watch, given to him as a parting gift by Irish Nationwide Building Society after he ran it into the ground.
The lavish retirement gift was handed over in April 2009, just after the building society announced losses of more than €240 million for the previous year. At the time, Nationwide was being propped up by a State guarantee and speculation was circulating about an impending bailout – and a €5.4 billion bailout from the taxpayer was just around the corner.
But it doesn’t qualify as a historical artefact as it is still working, and Fingers has refused all requests from The Bank Formerly Known as Anglo and the Department of Finance to give it back. Why should he, when he says nothing ever went wrong on his watch?
Or the winner could be a mug. At the final Labour Party press conference of the general election, staffers and journalists alike robbed all the “Gilmore for Taoiseach” mugs.
“It’ll be a collectors’ item,” they said.
But the award for the Historical Artefact of the year goes to Bertie’s Bedpost.
During a TV3 documentary on Fianna Fáil, Celia Larkin told interviewer Ursula Halligan that her former life partner viewed his successive periods in power as “notches on a bedpost”. This, she explained, was why he ran for a third term as taoiseach, despite her view that he should have bowed out after two.
Celia’s description deserves an award on its own as one of the most unsettling political images of the year.
THE KIM JONG-IL AWARD
THIS GOES to the Workers Party and its erstwhile comrades who now rule the roost in Labour.
There was frequent contact with the North Korean regime over the years, according to Brian Hanley and Scott Millar's authoritative history, The Lost Revolution.
In 1986, for example, WP leaders Seán Garland and Proinsias De Rossa, who is now a Labour MEP of course, went to Pyongyang for a conference on nuclear disarmament. In 1988 a WP delegation met both Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il – now no longer with us. At one point in the relationship, the Workers Party was offered North Korean Christmas decorations and “moose skins” as a fundraising item.
Wonder does Eamon Gilmore (or the Great Leader, as his backbenchers call him) have any of those decorations hanging over his mantelpiece in Shankill, for old times sake? Those were the days . . .
THE RATS AWARD
AT THE beginning of the year, Fianna Fáil – the party had been listing for over a year under Brian Cowen – finally capsized and began its rapid descent to the black depths of electoral disaster.
Some of the most privileged members of its officer corps refused to go down with the ship, despite enjoying over a decade of ministerial kow-towing and all the perks that high office brought them.
They were part of a deranged plan to reshuffle the cabinet in advance of the general election so that voters could be presented with shiny new Fianna Fáil ministers who had no part to play in the previous administrations.
It says a lot about just how crazy the political situation had become when Cowen and his lieutenants were deluded enough to think that the people might fall for such a blatant con trick. The rest of his parliamentary party was in no doubt. When calls were made offering ministries to the chosen few, most of them refused to answer their phones and those who did turned down the offers.
Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey were the main offenders, followed by Batt O’Keeffe and Tony Killeen. Mary Harney, although an Independent, was also seen to be taking the easy way out. The courageous parliamentarians got out of Dodge before the general election was called and withdrew from active politics with pensions intact.
They left their fuming grassroots to take the flak for what they had wreaked in their glory days. It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t be contesting the election, the least they could have done was stand shoulder to shoulder with the footsoldiers when the bombardment began. And for that, the Rats Leaving the Sinkin’ Ship Award goes to Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey, Batt O’Keefe and Mary Harney. Not that they’ll be bothered.
LABHRÁS FOR THE ÁRAS AWARD
THIS DOES not go to Fianna Fáil Senator Labhrás Ó Murch-who – who, embarrassed his party when declaring he wanted to run for the presidency after Micheál Martin had said Fianna Fáil wasn’t contesting it.
This, of course, wasn’t strictly true, as Seán Gallagher stepped into the breach and nearly brought home the bacon. And if that bacon was in an envelope, it was nothing to do with him as he is only a poor entreprenoooor.
Nor does it go to Gay Byrne, who enjoyed a few weeks in the limelight after Micheál asked him to consider taking a tilt at the Áras. Gaybo was always too smart to do that.
The award goes to former European Parliament president Pat Cox, who joined Fine Gael on a promise and then was beaten to the nomination by Gay Mitchell.
“I am who I am, warts and all, and I’m willing to serve if asked,” the former PD, Fianna Fáiler and Independent declared in a spirit of “deep humility” when he declared he would be seeking the Fine Gael nomination.
In the end, local and national party representatives went for Mitchell because his warts were proper Fine Gael warts and not blow-in warts.
The public disagreed. Gay was slaughtered.
