Drapier: Things are not really well between the PDs and Fianna Fáil.Yes, they appear okay on the surface, but the aviation spat is really a symptom of a much greater malaise.
The tiff began after the PD national conference at which Mary Harney declared herself open to courtship and partnership with Fine Gael.
This move prompted a mixed response from Fine Gael. But, it left a bad taste among Fianna Fáil members and there have been strong mutterings that the Taoiseach should seek to embrace again the Independent TDs who belong to the Fianna Fáil gene pool.
There are further dark mutterings in the Members' Bar that the two areas getting flak from the constituencies are health and crime - both positions occupied by PD Ministers.
The truth is that Harney is seeking a suitable issue on which to break from Government, but perhaps not immediately. The high moral issues are gone. Aviation is nearing a compromise conclusion and yet the PDs see their vote in surveys diminish almost into oblivion, but what issue to choose?
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By the by, Pat Rabbitte is quite right to push out the boat for a cemented deal with Fine Gael and perhaps the Greens prior to the general election. If that isn't done, they will not seem credible to the electorate.
Post-election, of course, it is all open and in the end, as in all coalition arrangements, there is only one game in town and that is numbers. Pat Rabbitte, Enda Kenny and all the party leaders are fully aware of that.
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The Tánaiste skirted over her time in the Department of Enterprise dealing with the Gama issue. She is a fighter to the last ditch and that quality stands her in good stead in tight situations. She will need all these qualities as health lurches from one crisis to another.
The health boards may have given way to the Health Service Executive but apart from a change in title, nothing really seems to have altered. It is well known that the Taoiseach is impatient with the lack of progress in the health service and has not been slow to express it. However, Harney's admirers feel she will still manage to pull it around despite the impasse with the doctors, the nurses, the consultants, the A&E, etc.
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Going back to the Gama issue, there is no doubt that Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins is in the running for politician of the year with his dogged uncovering of the machinations surrounding payments to workers.
Micheál Martin announced on Wednesday night in the Seanad that his department had forwarded a report to the various bodies that have prosecutorial powers to look at it further. However, the "blame game" is on over why it took an Independent TD to uncover the mess while unions and officials saw nothing going on.
Micheál must be in a dilemma over whether to defend his department officials or leave his predecessor Mary Harney swinging in the wind. Relations between the two would not be close and Micheál must be tempted to repay some of the recent snipes coming from PD quarters over his record in health.
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The Disability Bill lumbers on and on and on. This Bill in its first coming took the scalp of an excellent Minister of State, Mary Wallace, who was quite unfairly discarded when it was dropped and an announcement made that a new Bill was to be prepared.
A consultation committee was set up and piloted along by Willie O'Dea, who then escaped miraculously to the Department of Defence as a full minister, leaving the Bill in the hapless Frank Fahey's hands.
Extensive consultation was followed by a raft of Government amendments, many of them helpful to the whole disability sector. The ground was well laid by Brian Cowen in his Budget, when he outlined goodly sums of money for the sector.
This move was meant to be the buttress against which the forthcoming Bill would rest. However, this has not been satisfactory to many who want a completely rights-based Bill. The Government believes that such a Bill would see the money for services lining the pockets of the legal profession.
The Bill is in committee this week and has made remarkable progress. Frank has the services of Tom Savage to help him.
The Taoiseach is known to want the Bill through the Oireachtas before the summer and then to see it implemented as quickly as possible for the benefit of the disabled.
People with disabilities have long been ignored and this Bill when it becomes an Act will usher in a new era of proper provision for them.
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The Arbour Hill commemorative Mass and Army parade was held in great splendour this week. Normally there is a poor enough parliamentary attendance, but this year all parties were represented.
The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, Liz McManus for Labour, and Trevor Sargent were all in their pews with a myriad of TDs and senators from all parties. There was much comment about next year, 2006, being the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising and that an even more splendid affair should be planned for then.
Good to see Liam Cosgrave senior there in such fine fettle.
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The goings on in Castlebar are hilarious, rather like a 19th century comic opera in Irish rural life. Faction fighting was prevalent then and is now erupting again.
This time it is votes not land that are causing the disturbances. It has all the necessary ingredients of a modern comic opera. Votes, money, different factions of cumainn, rows outside church gates and to add a really modern twist, a blonde victim. Beverley Flynn, Independent, will get a Dáil seat next time round.