INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE'S SUNDAY SWOOP

Like Enda Kenny I was caught on the hop by the pre-dawn swoop by Bertie Ahern yesterday morning. The FG leader was only in Mayo. Unfortunately for me I was in Lisbon without a computer.

You have to play with whatever hand you are dealt. And so I wrote the analysis piece below in a cafe in the Baixa using my mobile phone. It's not exactly a mobile. It's a Nokia 9300 smart phone. It's the size of mobile phones from circa 1999 and opens to reveal a very very small QWERTY keyboard. You can't touch type with it and it's hard going when you have chunky fingers like me... but in an emergency, it's great.


Sorry for being so boring about the technical details but one of the great things about blogger.com is that you can post your scribbling by email. So it;s great when you are in an area with internet connections as zippy as a tranquilised three-toed sloth.

And here's the piece I tapped out on it in great haste (verging on panic) yesterday. Apologies for unspotted typos!

Ireland woke up yesterday morning to discover that the tactics of the pre-dawn police raid had been transferred to the world of Irish politics.

 

As the citizens rubbed sleep from their eyes, they opened their curtains to see a changed landscape. Like a fresh fall of snow, almost every lamp-post in the country has now been comandeered and festooned with somebody's beaming portrait.

 

And talk of a surprise move by Bertie Ahern. Five years ago - without warning - he arrived into an almost empty Dáil chamber late at night during an adjournment debate to dissolve the Dáil.

 

This time round the chicanery was even more convoluted. For months he has strung people along about the actual date of the election. He was adamant that the election would not be held on a Friday. But besides the Taoiseach dropping a couple of hints about the Dáil returning for at least a week after Easter, there was no real certainty about the date. Most zeroed in on May 24 but with caveats and qualifications. For when Bertie Ahern is playing a tight game he tends to use a stapler to make sure his cards are close to his chest.

 

The big surprise wasn't May 24 but the dawn raid on Áras an Uachtaráin. In hindsight it makes perfect sense of course. The only piece of legislation that was essential from a credibility perspective was the Criminal Justice Bill, which passed all stages in the Dáil on Tuesday.

 

From that moment the clock was ticking. The minimum time allowed for a campaign is three weeks. And so when it wasn't called on Thursday, we knew that Thursday May 17th was a goner.

 

One of the curious anomalies of the Irish electoral system is that strict rules and limits apply to spending during the election campaign. But before it's called, parties can spend any amount, infinite amounts is they have them.

 

That's why it seems that every billboard and poster site in the country has been given over to those messianic (and photoshopped) images of Bertie for the past month. That's why Fianna Fail favours minimum campaigns to allow it maximise its pre-campaign campaign spending, if you follow my drift.

 

Most commentators assumed it would be Tuesday or Wednesday of this week when Bertie would go to the country, to allow a bare three weeks. But in the event, there's now 25 days between the opening and closing of the race.

 

And why it makes sense is that the President was leaving for a trip abroad yesterday. While the Taoiseach could have signalled the dissolution of the Dáil to the Council of State in Mary McAleese's absence, that would have seemed shallow and mean-spirited for such a formal and serious duty.

 

But then, you would tend to think that Mr Ahern might have almost had a change of heart after seeing the poor showing for his party in the latest opinion poll on Friday. But there's a school of thought (and a persuasive one) within Fianna Fáil that believes that the party needed to go at the earliest possible moment. They argue that in 2007 the name of the game would be about cutting your losses. For them, even May 24 was too late - it should have been May 17or 18.

 

The notion of a strongly regrouped opposition has been trending since the local and European elections. After a swerve back to the Government last autumn, the momentum has seemed to swing back to the Mullingar Accord parties again.

 

The latest national poll suggests that Fine Gael is breathing down Fianna Fáil's neck but that scenario - huge FG gains; FF wipeout - isn't really borne out by the Red C constituency opinion polls conducted for Thomas Crosbie Holdings titles.

One opinion poll does not an election make. But the trends - and the unmistakable vibes being transmitted by the growing self-confidence of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte - all point to one of the great political clichés being flogged to death in the next few weeks ... yes, it's going to be too close to call.

 

Arguably, since Alan Duke's Tallaght Strategy of 1997, Irish politics has not been characterised by a clash of ideas; rather a clash of personalities, styles and credibility. When you compare economic policies, for example, the parties have all converged into the centre and agree the same fundamental principles (low taxes, both personal and corporate). Sure there are differences (stamp duty, auction politics etc) but they are nuanced - most are so subtle to be indistinguishable.

 

When it comes to crime, the three mainsstream parties are all slurping out of the same trough, out-toughing each other. The proof of that particular pudding is that both FG and Labour tacitly approved Michael McDowell's hardline criminal justice legislation by abstaining when the vote was called in the Dáil last Tuesday.

 

It's only in health where there's a bitter row over Mary Harney's plans to build private clinics on public land that we see real gap in terms of thinking and ideology.

 

Is all that sameness and uniformity healthy for democracy?

 

The choice that faces the electorate is akin to the choice between two banks or two mobile phone operators. In some of their policy choices, parties have been too influenced by focus groups, running scared of alienating the massive swathe of innately conservative and careful voters who occupy the middle ground. It's for that reason, I'd argue, that Sinn Féin and the Greens are doing so well. Each has an easily identifiable, clearly distinctive, message that brooks no ambiguity.

 

People forget that for all his undoubted charisma Bertie Ahern achieved only 39% of the vote in 1997. That was exactly the same as Albert Reynolds five years earlier. Why was Reynolds considered a disaster in 1992 and Ahen a triumph in 1997? Improved and ruthless vote management gave the party a huge seat bounce.

 

Will this be as bad as '92 or as disastrous as 1982 when Charles Haughey almost allowed FG become the largest party in the State for the first time?

 

It's fascinating to see that in spite of his travails and blunders during BertiGate, Mr Ahern is still his party's greatest asset. Mr Kenny will struggle even now to convince people that he has the mettle for Taoiseach whereas Mr Ahern can just point to his track record. Having said that. the FG leader has travelled a long way.

 

Of course, there'a a presidential flavour to all parliamentary elections these times. For FG, its biggest project has been to build Mr Kenny up. For all his mercurial abilities as a debater, there were doubts about Mr Rabbitte's populist appeal. But if he's not loved, he is respected, and that's backed up by the deference accorded to him on the streets.

Michael McDowell also personifies the PDs. In survey after survey people profess to despise or loathe him. But like Nicholas Sarkozy he sets out to be deliberately divisive or provocative because he knows that at the same time as he alienates some, he attracts others. But will it be enough to save his party from the meltdown that has been widely predicted?

 

For SF, it is Gerry Adams's face we will see though he's not a candidate and not as major a player in Southern politics as he likes to think. The Greens will be only party that will trade on its message rather than on Trevor Sargent's image. Both parties will do well, so well in fact that they will prevent a clear-cut overall result either way. The green message - be it republican or environmental - has huge potency with the Irish electorate right now.

 

If Fianna Fail win through, it will mean Bertie Ahern will be the longest leader in office since de Valera. Perhaps people have not yet tired of Bertie but have tired of his ministers. One of the imponderables (until polling day that is) is if the Government retains enough affection or if people have finally tired of this administration.

The picture will be complicated. We now face 25 days of claim, counterclaim, attack and counter-attack. What is certain is that on May 24 the people will speak. It's only then will we know if the status quo has prevailed or has fallen. Or, more likely. that we're entering into the limbo of a hung Dáil.

INSIDE POLITICS - ON POLLING

Well how can you begin to describe yesterday's opinion poll? A surprise? Nah, too weak. A turn-up for the books? Not strong enough. A fierce upset? Getting a bit warmer now. The biggest conversion since a fellow changed his name on the road to Damascas? Getting very close.

Ok, let's go for broke. The political equivalent of the shock goal that Seamus Darby scored in 1982 to stun Kerry and deprive them of the five-in-a-row.

Now you have it. Spot on. Totally apt. This is real championship fare. And no matter how one side is cruising, there's always a Seamus Darby moment lurking out there.

The TNS mrbi opinion poll carried out for the Irish Times certainly upset any complacency of thought process that may have set in among the commentariat over the past while.

A smug certainty that has pertained since last autumn in fact. Like everything political that has happened in Ireland over the past decades, this particular narrative begins and ends with the anorak.

That's when BertieGate erupted, whenwe experienced what seemed like an extraordinary phenomenon. We heard tallish stories about debts of honour and various Paddy Reillys and toddles over to Manchester where unremembered men (The Forgotten Soldiers of Destiny) did an impromptu whip-around for Bertie Ahern. All that was missing was the line about the dog eating my homework. And just when we thought the anorak had seen one rainshower too many, Fianna Fail rebounded wit venom.

The Fianna Fail recovery in the polls was perplexing then and is still perplexing now. Senior FF figures put it down to Bertie being able in his TV interview to reach beyond the cynical punditocracy to the more forgiving citizen in the streets. Or that the episode forced people to think, really seriously think, for the first time about who they wanted in government, and who they didn't want in Government.

And so, the thinking went, the people - when confronted with that stark choice - plumped for him rather than Enda or Pat.

It sounds plausible, credible even. It's poppycock though. The problem with it is this: If people were prepared to forgive him then, why are they not prepared to forgive him now, especially since he has steered clear of controversy or fresh allegations since.

My own opinion is that FF had already risen before the great unpleasantness last autumn - polls in the Examiner and the Irish Daily Mail showed FF at 39% and 40% in mid September last year. Our one was dismissed as a rogue poll by Pat Rabbitte - but was it?

And that's the only way you can describe this turnaround. Anybody who follows politics closely will know that Fine Gael has improved of late, and Enda Kenny's Ard Fheis speech galvanised the party and given it some momentum.

But a five point leap? That's a biggie, especially when Fianna Fail are down by three points. That's an eight-point turnaround which is enormous. In the context of Bertie's tactics of stringing everybody along on the election date, it might now seem wiser for the him to cashed in his chips earlier (and go for May 17) rather than watch his huge stack tortuously disappear.

The strange thing is that there's no major event or scandal or political controversy or failing that has driven this reverse. Are people that worried about their properties that they are prepared to throw the Government out on a whim whenever there's a bit of a wobble?

It could be that despite the naysayers, Fine Gael and Labour have finally marshalled all the disparate strands together - the messages, the policies, erasing doubts over Kenny's leadership, the credibility of the Mullingar Accord - and has convinced voters that it can provide a realistic alternative.

In that vein, Frank Flannery suddenly takes on John the Baptist status rather the hopeless optimist he seemed a while back. All those months of prophesising Fine Gael gains of 20 or more suddenly seem less lunatic, more visionary.

And this opinion poll will add to that momentum. But a note of caution is needed. The fact that TNS/mrbi has a certain cache and that for the paper of record doesn't make it infallible. There's a 3 per cent margin of error. And a deliberate weighting against FF to counter the traditional habit of its support being overstated.

There's the more general point also that no matter how pollsters dazzle us with science, measuring people's opinions (especially when they haven't formed opinions yet) is as hermetic as carrying water in your cupped hands.

Snapshot in time is the cliché we all use. It's more like looking at the TV news through a shop window. You can watch the gist of what's happening but can't hear the details. And in a doctors differ frame of mine, when you compare this national poll with the findings of the Red C regional polls for TCH titles (yesterday's poll for Cork South Central in the Evening Echo showed FF on course to retain its three seats there) the findings don't tally like they should.

What they all tell us is that this election will be much closer than 2002, that the Government could well be toppled, and we may have a political landscape as complicated as that of 1948. Politically, it could well turn out to be a long long summer.

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - NEW LABOUR AD CAMPAIGN

The new Labour ad campaign against private hosptitals is simplicity itself. Almost a single issue. Atmospheric sound. Minimal writing. That's what make is so effective. There will hardly be a better minute during the campaign.

INSIDE POLITICS - Wexford

There were two parallel political discourses happening today. The first was the reaction to the appalling tragedy in Co Wexford with the appalling gaps revealed in the HSE and Garda reaction to the incident. In Leinster House today - nothwithstanding the upcoming election - there was little talk about anything else among those I met in the corridors and cafes. But in the chamber, it was kind of by-passed in favour of other things. It shouldn't have been.

The story is an achingly sad one. Visually impaired parents. The bizarre visit to the undertakers' office on Friday. The action and inactions of the weekend. The tragedy was compounded by what seems like serious errors of omissions by the HSE and the Gardai. It is true that even with every conceivable safety net in place, sometimes agencies just can't intervene when somebody is intent on doing something. But it is clear that there are very grave questions to be answered as to whether or not these four needless deaths could have been prevented.

The interview given on Morning Ireland by the local HSE healt manager was disastrously insensitive. Richard Downes, who handled the interview really well, gently chided her for seemingly answering all questions by reading from preprepared statements. (The interview is telling; listen to it here)

The HSE came across as uncaring, more interested in absolving itself from any blame. Given that a similar tragedy occurred (in not dissimilar circumstances) in the selfsame place two years ago, you would have expected that protocols were put in place for weekend cover.

But no, there was an excuse (which was really no more than guff) that an expert group was looking into this matter and is due to report next month (yes next month!), at which time systems and protocols will be examined and looked at etc. In other words, two years after another tragedy, we had hardly moved on, and not put in the proper systems to safeguard vulnerable families and children. And when will those new systems be in place? Years and years hence. Fat lot of good this will do to the Dunne family. Meanwhile, the HSE passed the buck on the gardai.

Ah, the guards. The Garda Siochana reaction was equally flabbergasting. Rather than dealing with the tragedy, they went on an elaborate ass-saving folly saying they were not going to be scapegoated (presumably by the HSE). No explanation for delays in contacting the HSE. No explanation as to how a squad car being driven around an estate (as opposed to making a physical call to the house) makes a whit of difference to anything.

The disgrace was that in the face of such an awful human tragedy the two state agencies with responsibility were more intent on indulging in a blame-shifting exercise. The two local priest who visited the family and made major efforts to help the Dunnes are the only individuals to emerge out of this mess with any credit.

But strangely, at the highest level, it had no real resonance. Sure it was discussed at Cabinet and an enquiry is being launched. But strangely, it didn't dominate Leaders Questions. Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte both chose to ask questions about Governance. Fair enough, but in the day that was in it, they seemed oddly unimportant, out of kilter. Only Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin of SF brought it up as his leader's question - and asked the relevant questions that have been asked all day.

INSIDE POLITICS - ELECTION DATE

Mondays in Leinster House are as quiet as a country graveyard. Usually. Not this week. Already we're just a couple of hours into the week and the usual trickle of Monday-morning emails have turned into a torrent.

As has the weather. Labour launched its new advert campaign in driving rain. It's based around the theme of 'The First 100 Days'. This was originally an American concept. When there was a change in regime or administration, the acid test was how active they had been in fulfilling their promises in the first 100 days. The week before last, virtually every major American media organisation did the same for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, who gained control of the Upper House. (see Labour's 10 promises here).

If you parse this morning's papers, the story count for political stories is high. Two opinion polls were published yesterday. Expect them to become an almost daily occurrence between now and election day.

Both polls in the Sunday Indepedent and the Sunday Business Post give mildly good news for Fine Gael and show some slippage in Fianna Fail support.

Both polls have added to the slew of speculation around Leinster House about when the election will be held. With FF faltering a bit in the polls, there's a nervousness creeping into its backbenches, with a sense that most TDs want Bertie Ahern to call an early election.

The longer they go on, the more that malaise and uncertainty will creep in, they say. They are also worried about the potential damage that may be shipped by Fianna Fail and by Mr Ahern from the Quarryvale module of the Tribunal - Tom Gilmartin is due to give evidence this week.

Most think that it will be held on Thursday May 24. That would mean the election would be called next week. That would allow the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill and also allow Bertie Ahern to bask in the glow of Northern devolution.

I had a hunch that it would be held a week later, and that the reason that Ahern was holding it on a Thursday was to allow people get away for the June Bank Holiday weekend. Like a lot of my hunches, I think it's wrong.

INSIDE POLITICS - THE DARK ARTS

ON POLITICS
Harry McGee
I opened my email inbox on Thursday morning and a wave of nostalgia washed over me.
There it was, the present we had been months waiting for, the sorcerer’s magic bag of dirty tricks and the propagandists guide to the dark arts of spin.

Like all the best surprises, the packaging gave little clue of what was to come.

"Fine Gael and Labour fail the Economic Test – Minister Brian Cowen", read the title.


I could hardly contain my excitement as I tore off the packaging like a kid on Christmas morning. I wasn’t disappointed. It was chock-a-block with colourful graphs, charts, figures and sums. It was obvious that they had spent weeks and week working on the magic potions and dark spells.

And Eureka, in the best tribute outside JK Rowling to Lord Voldemort, it contains dark spin that distorts over 100, yes 100, of the Mullingar Accord promises and casts them off into the abyss.

And its no Brian ‘prudent to the point of boring us all to death’ Cowen that we have here. It’s biffo in best biffing mode.

He is unsparing in his claims. Fine Gael and Labour, he contends, would plummet the country back into the red, and would be running up exchequer deficits of E5 billion by 2012.

(And the really mysterious thing about all this is that the equally extravagant promises made by Fianna Fail will somehow magically produce a break-even situation. Why? you may ask. Well, silly, because FF have ‘costed’ them! and they also have a more powerful magic wand).

Yes, after a five year absence, the Fianna Fail ‘rebuttal unit’ has swung back into action with a vengeance.

In a gleeful example of the dark arts, its release was timed for a few hours before Fine Gael and Labour launched their joint economic manifesto, thus giving us our first example of ‘prebuttal’ for this general election.

The moment that Fianna Fail begins to get its retaliation in first, you know that an election is on.

And for the first time, we got our first real sense during this week that the election campaign is in full hue and cry, that battle has been joined.

Remember, the Dáil is still in recess until next Tuesday but it’s clear that all the parties are on amber alert. There were a couple of ready reckoners for that. The week was swollen with press conferences and announcements (on the economy and jobs), by claims and by counter-claims.

Anyway, the revival of the ‘Rebutall Unit’ brought us back to this time five years ago. The election was called on April 25 with Bertie Ahern choosing the shortest possible election campaign of three weeks, with polling day set for May 17.

Within a 12 hours of the Dail being dissolved, Fianna Fail had launched its manifesto, majoring (unsurprisingly) on the economy. For the next week, there were exhaustive (and ultimately pointless) debates about whose figures best stood up to scrutiny. And of course the ‘Rebuttal Unit’ was busily fact-checking, claim-countering, and prebutting from the off.

Not that it mattered. If the campaign had lasted three days or three months, it would not have made a difference. The Government parties dominated the agenda throughout.
Fine Gael was on a loser going in. The party compounded its difficulties with moronic and meaningless promises on taxis and to reimburse Eircom shareholders. As leader, Michael Noonan was a 100% charisma free zone until the last televised debate. But by that stage it was all over bar the shouting.

From the off, the question was not about Fianna Fail winning but about how big the winning margin would be. In the event, a rout was prevented only by the intervention of a big bespectacled child. He shinned up a lamp-post with a catapult in his back pocket and took a couple of pot-shots at Bertie Ahern.

But this time it’s different. One of the things that’s disconcerting though is that so many of the issues and the problems (quality of life; transport, health, and crime) are exactly the same. And four years ago we all made the mistake of believing promises that could not be fulfilled. We learned from our mistakes. And it’s clear from the spate of crowd-pleasing promises made already that we will have to learn from our mistakes again.

But this time it’s different. Fianna Fail sense some trouble ahead. That’s why they were panicked into bringing their manifesto launch forward to the Ard Fheis.
With good reason. For when you lick your thumb and raise it in the air, we can feel the first few gusts of more bitter winds. This campaign will be sharper, closer, more brutal, more verbose, and more gale force than five years ago. But from which direction is change coming? Is it from the west (Kenny and Rabbitte) or will the prevailing easterlies (Ahern and McDowell) continue to prevail?

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - Got my sums wrong on Lemass

Just in case anybody out there is a big enough sap to take the word of a political correspondent as gospel!

I was one of the people who contributed to Mark Warren's quirky series 'So You Want to be Taoiseach'.

Within minutes, my most qualified (and bloody pedantic) colleague had texted me to remind me of the error. And demanding as public and as humiliating an apology!

Last night I was making the point that being Minister for Finance is always a big help. And among those who I said held that portfolio was Sean Lemass, the Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966.

Of course, he was never. He was de Valera's Tánaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce for many years but it was Sean McEntee who was the Finance Minister. It's clear that Lemass coveted the job at Finance and was disappointed when McEntee got the plum role in the 1951 FF administration.

And one thing that I neglected to point out that there were occasions (ie when we were going through hard times) when being Minister for Finance signalled the death of your ambition. There have been a few Finance ministers associated with austerity who could never become Taoiseach. They included McEntee certainly (his hard measures in the early 1950s contributed to the fall of the minority FF Government in 1954) and also Richie Ryan from the 1973-1977 Coalition (lampooned on Hall's Pictorical Weekly as the Minister for Hardship).

Perhaps the same could be said of Ray MacSharry, dubbed 'Mac the Knife' for his swingeing cut-backs in 1987-89.

Inside Politics - Willie O'Dea and the Original Sin(do)

Dan Sullivan has posed a couple of very pointed and searchign questions about Willie O'Dea's second career (that of a newspaper hack) on his blog. He says they have been unanswered by Willie's own profession (his fellow journalists, of course). The following is a long quote from Dan's website. Now read on ...

"Unanswered (question) because it seems no one in the Dead Tree Press is asking them.

I was drawn a fortnight ago to the Minister of Defence Willie O’Dea's entry in the register of Oireachtas members interest. The minister as many people will know has a weekly column in the Sunday Independent. Now, politicians writing the occasional column or making the odd television appearances is not uncommon nor should it be discouraged. However, a weekly column is a platform for promotion of his electoral chances much like any other piece of advertising and it suggests employment. So why is there no reference to this engagement in his return.

The absence to any reference to his column begs the following questions.

Is the minister actually employed on contract my Independent News and Media and is he paid the going rate for this column? – and why is this not listed on his return?

If not then does he pay a market rate for the advertising space he is being given to convey his political message to the public each week?

If not then this space is being given as a gift from Independent New and Media to the minister and why was it not noted as such on his return?

Those are the only real options.

A senior minister takes up an offer of assistance from a major commercial organisation. An offer that will assist his re-election chances and he then doesn’t declare it in his entry of the register of Oireachtas members’ interests. You would think that this would be headline news, right? Well, while we’ve had the usual prurient interest in who owns how many houses and perhaps the exotic shareholders of some Oireachtas members, there are been no mention of this cosy relationship."

Willie does seem to have a special status with the Sindo, one that has been ongoing as long as I have been in journalism. Ministers (or to be accurate, their civil servants) write op-ed pieces for newspapers all the time. No money ever passes hand.

But Willie's scribing for the Sindo is a horse of a different colour. He writes a column so regularly for them that for a while we had high hopes that Aengus Fanning would recruit him as one the famous 03 team.

Anyway, his people told me last night that Willie gets no payment for his weekly column (I hadn't realised it was so regular). Which is fine. But if he's writing a weekly column, he shouldn't be doing it for free. That's not a good precedent for our profession.

If he wants, he can donate the fee to charity. And it's arguable that the column (a regular free platform for Willie's world view) could and should be declared to SIPO.

INSIDE POLITICS - Focus Group: but focus on what?

I wrote about Frank Luntz in February, the last time he did his exercise for RTE (see piece here).
Now he has done his third (and possibly last) pre-election programme for RTE and my reservations about the exercise have been reinforced (see full programme here).

Back in February I wrote:

And that brings me to the second point. The momentary experience. The group was asked to respond to one - or two at the most - sequence(s) featuring politicians. It was a critique of one television performance, expanded into an unsatisfactory show of hands (based on that clip alone) on the worth and wherewithal of that politician.

I'm sorry, but you don't need a dialometer to telly you that Brian Cowen will bore the backside of you when he starts with Department of Finance Bullshit Bingo (and delivers it with all the enthusiasm of a kid who's been given ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys in confession). And you know that Brendan Howlin is never going to stoke up the masses using pretentious words like interdict.

But the problem, as far as this exercise is concerned, is that both have stood and delivered on many other occasions, with punch and pungency. It's like writing off Dublin's All Ireland chances on the basis of their defeat by Tyrone in Croke Park at the weekend. And why for that matter use a short Dan Boyle sound-byte on the environmental aspects of the Budget delivered on the plinth of Leinster House? Why hone in on Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin on health, rather than focusing on the essence of the Sinn Féin message, its stance on the national question? Granted, you have to select what clips you have. Indeed, you have to cut your cloth to suit your measure. But people will ultimately assess parties and personalities in a more complex fashion.

The third niggling feeling I have about focus groups (in general)is this. A disparate group of people are brought together in an artificial setting. Unlike a jury, they never have the time to settle down and get over that initial hump of discomfort and reserve. And often (and as far as I know you could see it here too) the debate is dominated by a couple of individuals. Others, either through reserve or politeness, will tend to row in and agree there and then. But at home later, while standing over the kitchen sink or staring into the fire, they may come to a radically different opinion on an issue or personality. I also think that also explains some of the inbuilt flaws of opinion polls.

This third of the RTE Week In Politics Specials came from the West of Ireland. Again the production values were super-duper and the three expert panellists (Terry Prone, Ivan Yates and Noel Whelan) as well as presenter Sean O'Rourke were all entertaining and incisive in their interpretation of what they saw.

But you must separate Luntz the PhD academic hot shot from Luntz the showman. And what he has done here is made a circus out of a focus group, made it interesting for telly by using some clever technology and graphics, and installing himself as the ringmaster.

The ingredients are simple. In traditional focus groups, participants are asked to state their opinions on leaders, their promises and presentation after they have heard a clip or seen a picture. Luntz uses a little electronic gizmo, a kind of dialometer, that he gives to each member of the group.

So if they like what the person is saying, or the person themselves, they will turn the dial up towards 100. If they don't, they turn down (and with Michael McDowell, the poor man is in freefall the second his image appears before them). All this information is collected, number-crunched, portrayed on the screen as a running graph, making it look very authoritative and scientific.

But what does it tell you, ultimately? That people prefer listening to Pat Rabbitte than they do Trevor Sargent; or that Bertie easily outranks Enda with this group of people. It's like a restaurant review. Interesting to read, a bit of an indulgence, but will it determine the groceries you buy? Will the performance of a leader in one speech make any difference on polling day? I think not. For if it did, Trevor Sargent would definitely be a goner.

This reality is that a small group of people in one geographical location, strangers to each other, are gathered together. They tell us a few interesting things, about personalities and about issues.

In relation to issues, they views to be so disparate and so localised and personalised they could never be deemed authoritative as a trend.

And when you get to personalities, it's a little more complicated. Bertie does well when he's talking on the level, about real things, about tangibles. Kenny fares very poorly. He's criticised for not being specific enough, for being too vague. But then a few minutes later the focus group loves Gerry Adams even though he is vague to the point of vacant. And they like Pat Rabbitte because Pat Rabbitte is such a powerful speaker. And they don't warm to Trevor because a) he gave a piss poor speech and b) they don't like the hard message he's selling.

A lot of seems to come down to whom the group instinctively warm, whom they recognise. If people are as disengaged from politics as we hear, it's no surprise that Bertie (who has all the cards stacked in his favour) will score higher on the Richter scale of recognition, love and warmth. All this tells us a bit, but it's hardly representative of wider society.

The second ingredient is Luntz himself. As ringmaster, he is all front and showbiz, busier and more furious in movement than an orchestra conductor as he brings us through the gamut of trick ponies and verbal acrobatics.

And boy does he make a great welcome for himself. He reminded the focus group that Enda Kenny's 'Contract for a Better Ireland' was a steal from 'The Contract for America' that swept Newt Gingrich's republicans to power in the mid 90s. Luntz is a first-class self-publicist - he also claims credit for euphemising the terms oil drilling and global warming to fuel exploration and climate change. The influence of Luntz and his methods has been well here (and in the UK and in the US) hyped but I'm not convinced that they tell us anything that will cause fundamental shifts within political parties.

Yes, it makes for compelling viewing. But some of the stuff that emerges from this focus group as the really important things will have zero bearing when people go to cast their votes - like Michael McDowell being to blame for pubs in the West of Ireland closing down (!!!!! - by the way, he has absolutely nothing to do with it); too many immigrants coming in; and the broadside a couple of them took at An Taisce for allegedly being anti-development and anti-progress.

Surprisingly, this week, a very trenchant criticism of his method was made by one of the programme insiders, Terry Prone one of three panellists on these Week in Politics specials. In her Irish Examiner column yesterday, Prone made some very salient points, that brought a bit of reality back into the debate - hitherto, there has been uncritical enthusiasm for Luntz's intervention into the campaign. Here's a little of the argument she made:

Luntz passionately believes that gathering 30 people selected by Red C into a room and barracking them with questions about politicians will throw up infallible predictions about what’s going to happen in the election.

He’s wrong. What you get when you put those 30 people in a room is pub talk, made seem more significant than it is by inspired editing of four hours of material so the dross ends up on the cutting-room floor.

Tough stuff. You can read Terry Prone's full column in the Irish Examiner here.

INSIDE POLITICS - Ethics and Pathetics

Something strange happened this week. A Bill was published with less noise and fanfare than you’d get out of a bunch of stiffs in a morgue.

So what’s strange about that? Well, in the normal course of events a Minister will unveil a new piece of legislation as if he’s just personally discovered a new planet in our Solar System, or is about to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima, or has just been announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

And it is especially so if it involves Michael McDowell. On the slightest whim the Tánaiste is wont to hightail it down to Templemore, where he inspects two columns of hastily-assembled trainee gardaí before delivering himself of a Martin Luther King style speech, full of aspiration and determination that his latest get-tough bill will be more get-tough than all the previous get-tough bills.

What went wrong this week when the Ethics Bill was published in an atmosphere of monasterial silence? This wasn’t an ordinary run-of-the-mill Bill. No sirree. This was the extra special Bill that was demanded by Michael McDowell during BertieGate as the quid pro quo for staying in power. This was the pound of flesh; the leash and muzzle on the profligate Fianna Fáilers; the rope that would spancel him from straying over to Manchester for the odd speaking engagement.

It is true that for technical reasons the Department of Finance was the sponsoring department. But there was no press release. There was no announcement on the Departmental website. The Bill was published and posted on the Oireachtas website, ‘snook out’ under the cover of darkness during the Easter weekend.

And what had happened to the Tánaiste. Had he been the unsuspecting victim of a snatch squad of Poor Clare nuns? Had he been struck dumb at the sight of Enda Kenny’s new bouffant quiff? Or had he finally run out of things to say?

And when you parsed the Bill, you began to understand the unusual silence. For far from curbing the spendthrift ways of FF ministers, the Bill increases the value of a gift (including a monetary one) that must be declared by three times. The previous limit had been E635 (and that was included in the 1997 legislation). But the increase of the threshold to €2,000 was an astounding concession. Sure, a politician who gets a loan or dig-out of over €2,000 must first get an opinion (essentially the sanction) of the Standards in Public Office Commission. But one reading of the legislation is that the politician could get a limitless number of dig-outs from Samaritans like Paddy the Plasterer, all below the value of €2,000, and not have to declare them.

It’s an exercise in goal-post shifting. It’s the same with political donations. Gone are the days when parties and politicians could rely on the likes of Ben Dunne being good for a hundred grand. Now a TD must declare a donation over €635, and can’t accept anything over €2,540. A party must declare any loan it receives about 5,078 and can’t accept more than €6,348. What parties have done is gone underground.

Instead of getting a small number of very large donations, they now get a very large number of small donations, none of which are declared. How much do candidates raise? How much do political parties raise? We’re all as much in the dark as we always were.

If you compare the heroic prose of Michael McDowell last October with this wan piece of legislation, you see a credibility gap of Grand Canyon proportions. Last October, it was all about a pound of flesh. Now, the Tánaiste is justifying the rise because of a lamp he received as a gift or cases of wine (must be some wine if it’s worth over E635 a case) he might receive.

Who was calling for this? Nobody. The Standards in Public Office Commission says it received less than one piece of correspondence per year from Government in relation to items that might have exceeded the E635 threshold. Some demand there.

Andrew Rawnsley wrote a majestic piece in the Observer last Sunday on Tony Blair’s decade at the top. One of the points he made in the course of a long piece was that New Labour’s catchy slogan of its three priorities – Education, Education, Education – was just that, a slogan, nothing more.

So many promises founder on the rocks of reality. But with soothing prose, our politicians try to massage and spin it as if the promises were never really made in the first place. Strong ethics legislation. Banning casinos. Café bars. Reducing class sizes. 3,000 hospital beds. Carbon taxes. Decentralisation. Electronic voting.

Between promise and delivery, reality barges rudely into the picture. The determined dream is quietly dropped, or watered down, or parlayed away. The opposition isn’t immune to it either. What’s happened, for example, to Enda Kenny’s Ard Fheis pledge to fine the ‘weekend warriors’, the drunks and fighters who clog up A&E wards? That too was quietly ditched.

It’s as old as humans are. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, especially if they’re worth over €635.

INSIDE POLITICS - Ethics and Pathetics

Something strange happened this week. A Bill was published with less noise and fanfare than you’d get out of a bunch of stiffs in a morgue.

So what’s strange about that? Well, in the normal course of events a Minister will unveil a new piece of legislation as if he’s just personally discovered a new planet in our Solar System, or is about to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima, or has just been announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

And it is especially so if it involves Michael McDowell. On the slightest whim the Tánaiste is wont to hightail it down to Templemore, where he inspects two columns of hastily-assembled trainee gardaí before delivering himself of a Martin Luther King style speech, full of aspiration and determination that his latest get-tough bill will be more get-tough than all the previous get-tough bills.

What went wrong this week when the Ethics Bill was published in an atmosphere of monasterial silence? This wasn’t an ordinary run-of-the-mill Bill. No sirree. This was the extra special Bill that was demanded by Michael McDowell during BertieGate as the quid pro quo for staying in power. This was the pound of flesh; the leash and muzzle on the profligate Fianna Fáilers; the rope that would spancel him from straying over to Manchester for the odd speaking engagement.

It is true that for technical reasons the Department of Finance was the sponsoring department. But there was no press release. There was no announcement on the Departmental website. The Bill was published and posted on the Oireachtas website, ‘snook out’ under the cover of darkness during the Easter weekend.

And what had happened to the Tánaiste. Had he been the unsuspecting victim of a snatch squad of Poor Clare nuns? Had he been struck dumb at the sight of Enda Kenny’s new bouffant quiff? Or had he finally run out of things to say?

And when you parsed the Bill, you began to understand the unusual silence. For far from curbing the spendthrift ways of FF ministers, the Bill increases the value of a gift (including a monetary one) that must be declared by three times. The previous limit had been E635 (and that was included in the 1997 legislation). But the increase of the threshold to €2,000 was an astounding concession. Sure, a politician who gets a loan or dig-out of over €2,000 must first get an opinion (essentially the sanction) of the Standards in Public Office Commission. But one reading of the legislation is that the politician could get a limitless number of dig-outs from Samaritans like Paddy the Plasterer, all below the value of €2,000, and not have to declare them.

It’s an exercise in goal-post shifting. It’s the same with political donations. Gone are the days when parties and politicians could rely on the likes of Ben Dunne being good for a hundred grand. Now a TD must declare a donation over €635, and can’t accept anything over €2,540. A party must declare any loan it receives about 5,078 and can’t accept more than €6,348. What parties have done is gone underground.

Instead of getting a small number of very large donations, they now get a very large number of small donations, none of which are declared. How much do candidates raise? How much do political parties raise? We’re all as much in the dark as we always were.

If you compare the heroic prose of Michael McDowell last October with this wan piece of legislation, you see a credibility gap of Grand Canyon proportions. Last October, it was all about a pound of flesh. Now, the Tánaiste is justifying the rise because of a lamp he received as a gift or cases of wine (must be some wine if it’s worth over E635 a case) he might receive.

Who was calling for this? Nobody. The Standards in Public Office Commission says it received less than one piece of correspondence per year from Government in relation to items that might have exceeded the E635 threshold. Some demand there.

Andrew Rawnsley wrote a majestic piece in the Observer last Sunday on Tony Blair’s decade at the top. One of the points he made in the course of a long piece was that New Labour’s catchy slogan of its three priorities – Education, Education, Education – was just that, a slogan, nothing more.

So many promises founder on the rocks of reality. But with soothing prose, our politicians try to massage and spin it as if the promises were never really made in the first place. Strong ethics legislation. Banning casinos. Café bars. Reducing class sizes. 3,000 hospital beds. Carbon taxes. Decentralisation. Electronic voting.

Between promise and delivery, reality barges rudely into the picture. The determined dream is quietly dropped, or watered down, or parlayed away. The opposition isn’t immune to it either. What’s happened, for example, to Enda Kenny’s Ard Fheis pledge to fine the ‘weekend warriors’, the drunks and fighters who clog up A&E wards? That too was quietly ditched.

It’s as old as humans are. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, especially if they’re worth over €635.

INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE AHERN INTERVIEW

I interviewed Bertie Ahern last week and the piece appeared in the Irish Examiner on Easter Monday (full transcript of printed interview below). I have done hundreds of interviews during my career. And this is the first that I have ever done in Q and A format, rather than in the more conventional narrative style.

The Q and A style of interview was popularised by John Waters in his HotPress days (and he based it on interviews he used to read in the religious magazine, The Word). Vincent Browne was also partial to it, and also used it regularly during the time he was writing a weekly interview for the Irish Times.

In a way, you'd think it's an easier way of writing up interviews. All you do is transcribe the recording and Bob's your uncle! Not, not quite. A half an hour interview will produce about 4,000 words and unless you are writing for the New Yorker, it's not going to fit in. So it becomes an exercise in pruning.

Plus, it makes it harder to describe how a person reacts to a question. HotPress used to use (laughs) to convey laughter but it always read silly. A couple of times Bertie Ahern, while exceedingly pleasant throughout, commented in a hard-nosed and hard-chaw way to questions about political opponents. What I tried to do was describe all those kind of reactions, the timbre, the way he projected himself at the start.

For some reason, the Q and A format seemed very suited to this particular interview. He was more considered, more in-depth in answering questions than in previous interviews and he went to some lengthts to put context on some of his responses. By going for a straight narrative account, you would have lost a lot of the quotes to description and paraphrase. In a way, this interview is the edited highlights, rather than the match report from the next day.

THE INTERVIEW

Bertie Ahern, we are often told, does not obsess with his place in history, doesn’t have the need to leave vainglorious legacies like Tony Blair (reputedly) does.
But even before the nation decides his fate this summer, Ahern will have his place in modern Irish political history assured.
De Valera may have moulded the State; Lemass may have made it modern and outward looking but Ahern made it prosperous and also banished forever all inferiority complexes.
It’s too early, much too early, to judge how history and posterity will judge him. But arguably he now ranks second only to Dev in the FF pantheon.
But for all that, what is most disarming about him - and this goes a long way to explain his enduring appeal – is the sense of ordinariness he projects. His critics will claim that it’s a long time since he has had to use a petrol pump. And it is true that he himself is not shy when it comes to reminding people about the interests and achievements section of his C.V. Yet, when most people think of Bertie Ahern they think anorak.
As you are interviewing him, your are reminded a little of the GAA player or manager. When they are asked how they won crucial championship matches, it is never because they were a better team. No, it’s invariably because the media wrote them off.
It is ditto with Bertie Ahern who often points to his successes in terms of defying those who underestimate him, while also having a slight dig at the media and other detractors.
It’s clear too that there’s an election in the air because there’s a harder edge to his comments. In a wide-ranging interview he is much tougher than in previous Irish Examiner interviews, on the effects of Bertie-Gate, on opposition claims, on Fine Gael, on Enda Kenny. He also delivers a very strong castigaton of the Greens.
He also reveals that having ruled out a Friday, the election mightn’t take place on a Thursday and that it will take place at the end of May (after the 23rd) at the very earliest.
In that vein of ordinariness, he takes on the chin the national pastime of poking fun when he garbles sentences. And true to form, he creates a brand new Bertie-ism when saying he doesn’t mind Bertie-isms.
“I have a good sense of humour. I have been doing Pub Grub and all of those programmes…”
(Of course, he meant to refer to Today FM’s ‘Gift Grub’)

Irish Examiner: How can you deny after the Ard Fheis that Fianna Fáil is not getting involved in auction politics?

Bertie Ahern: Our tax and spending proposals are costed. They are fully deliverable in a strong economy.
What we put out in the Ard Fheis is well within the limits of what we have been spending on welfare and tax in the last number of years.

IE: What’s your response to the charge of 53 promises and E300 million a minute during your speech?

BA: Enda Kenny made 23 promises (in his speech), my guys tell me, and nobody mentioned that, only that he made one…
While others have sought to claim it’s auction politics, the charge does not hold up to scrutiny.
I watch what happened in the AF. There was a group of people who said beforehand: They (FF) have no ideas. They have no routine. They have no innovation. If I made the speech and didn’t put in the things, they would have said: ‘I told you so. No ideas. No fresh ideas. Too long in Government.
And then when I came out with a whole lot of new thinking they couldn’t take that.

IE: Some say you were panicked into making the speech. Did you plan to make those promises?

BA: My draft speech, I had back in early to mid February.
The stuff that was in it was taken from our draft manifesto and I took out a few and put in a few as we go along but most of the big ones didn’t change a line.

IE: Is the election going to be fought on the broad theme of Bill Clinton’s famous line, ‘it’s the economy stupid’?

BA: There are two things in it to be honest. There’s the economy and all the economy means… Then the second issue is local issues. The local issues totally differ. As I toddle around the country (I encounter them). They can be big or small. In Cork at the moment it’s the airport. In Galway it’s the water. All around the country, there’s a national issue and then local.

IE: Look at what happened to Tony Blair in his third election in Britain. Will FF struggle to maintain its seat and if you win, will you just about limp home?

BA: Every election is different. I have fought so many of them in my career. We did very well in the last election and we will be fighting hard to hold on in most constituencies and in a couple of other constituencies trying to increase our representation.
What you have to do is just get out there and put in the best work you can, the best policy formulation. Do you plans. Do your publicity. Do all the things we are rolling out.
I have to laugh at the position. Two weeks ago, they said FF have no posters, are not doing up any leaflets, and I met a TD today and he said you have a huge amount of posters up, you have the (FF newspaper) out, you have ads everywhere, do you not think it’s too soon?
I think it’s about work. It’s about what’s the policy agenda, fulfilling that, finishing out our period of work, right up to the end of April and into early May, we still have a huge amount of launches. And I’m going to keep on doing that, on climate change, getting our position out. Ticking off our boxes on what we promised to do.
We have a lot of legislation we won’t get through but that we’re going to get published because at least we want to get the work finished on it.
It will be harder because you are ten years in (power). Tony Blair, in fairness to him, would have walked the last election if it wasn’t for Iraq. The one issue, the international thing that went wrong for them, in so far as they thought they were going to get in and get out.

IE: And what has been your Iraq?

BA: Health is probably the one that comes up and repeats itself.
There are good stories in health. The one good thing about the row over the maternity hospital in Cork is that everybody now knows there’s a world-class hospital in Cork. In Tullamore, they are opening up a huge hospital.
There’s no balance in this (debate). This is all about let’s find the story, let’s find where the crash is, let’s talk about the reaction.

IE: But Enda Kenny said he’d make the election a referendum on health?

BA: Looking at health, we met most of targets on staff and on beds.
Look at the cardiac strategies. They are completed. In 1997, the only cardiac was in the Mater. There’s cardiac in Galway and Cork now. It’s not a issue. There’s no waiting list for (cardiac) stents.
The cancer strategy is very good. It’s nice if it was finished (but work continues). Maternity is very strong.
We are spending more per capita on the capital programme than any other country in the OECD except Norway.
(He continues with a defence of co-location): The length of time (projects have taken) when we have given them money. There were
areas that we gave money in 1999 and they have not finished yet.
It’s Too slow. I’m not a great lover of the private sector but it’s quicker.

IE: You were described before as the Teflon Taoiseach, as Fianna Fail’s best electoral asset. Has the loan controversy of last autumn changed that?


BA: When I went in 1997, the view was that it would be impossible to beat the three amigos as they marched around town together, that I would be a lightweight and that I wouldn’t be able to beat them.
There were three experienced guys, Spring Bruton and de Rossa.
There was the fact that I came up on the outside track with our logo: ‘People before Politics’. It surprised people.
Commentators generally felt (the Rainbow) would win that election after two and a half years.
I think we caught them out and built on that in 2002, we had a very good election.
Nobody can deny the success of this Government but there are people… you built up battles with various groups. That’s inevitable when you are government.

IE: But what about your reputation?

BA: I don’t think about it too much. I would meet more people in two or three days around the country than most people would meet in a year.
You would very quickly detect if they had totally gone off you or not. And they are not.
I addressed public meetings last Friday or Saturday to probably 3-4,000 people which was bigger than the FG Ard Fheis and it was only my usual toddle around the country for a Sunday afternoon.
I won no election on my own. I didn’t win 1997 or 2002 on my own.
I don’t detect any personal animosity to me at all and I think the events of last October don’t rate. They are more interested in how I’ll solve the nurse’s dispute or how I’ll get rid of the crime.

IE: You have a reputation as a master strategist? Was the so-called Inchdoney Conversion (where he embraced socialism) an example of that following the poor local and European election results.

BA: Inchdoney was important. But the switch wasn’t that fundamental. (in 1997), we had gone in with policies to enhance education, services, get more people working, stimulate the economy and growth, bring down corporaton and personal tax, give more incentive to work.
It all us to put more into social policy. We have done a good job in these areas. Let’s put more money into education; let’s put more billions in health.Let’s advance some of the social agenda. I believe we have done that. You could not do that in advance, you could not have done that before you cut income tax and corporation tax.
You would never have had the money.

IE: Speaking of strategy, what Thursday will the election be held?

BA: I never said a Thursday.

IE: You have not decided what day of the week?

BA: I probably have. It’s of no importance whatsoever. My point about the Friday was that with the cleaning of he register, now people are meant to be registered where they are living. That includes students as well. If they are living in Dublin, they should be registered in Dublin
There are tens of people every Friday, working a four and a half day week, who are gone on Friday at lunchtime and do you think they are going to stop for an election?
The fact was that in 2002, they didn’t, they were gone. That’s even more so five years on.

IE: Do you get tired of the media and comedians going too far by parodying you?

BA: No. No. I have a good sense of humour. I have been doing ‘Pub Grub’ (sic) and all of those programmes, breakfast time, all of these programmes have been going on for years and different radio programmes.

IE: Where do you think the election will be won and lost in terms of constituencies. And will Sinn Fein get a lift from the northern breakthrough and the Greens from growing concern over climate change?

BA: At the end of the day, the election is 43 by-elections.
Maybe Sinn Fein will get a lift. I hope we have. I have worked as hard on the North as I could. I gave it the lion’s share of my time and my commitment. You just have to. There are some people who look at the North as the key issue. What percentage of the electorate they are I’m not sure.
People have a general interest but what will swing their vote is a ceist eile.
The Greens are benefiting not from anything the Greens in Ireland are doing and I’m not saying any of this being disrespectful against the Greens. But all over the world the Greens are taking a huge jump except in Germany where the Greens were in power and they got rid of them and they went through the floor.
All of the places where they have never had power, they are doing well.
That’s because you can’t turn on the TV without seeing an ad or seeing somebody going on abut a carbon footprint or a water footprint.
It’s been that way now relentlessly now since last summer and really since the year before when you had all the floods and the mudslides and everything else.
Of course people are rightfully concerned about these issues. We were working away on our recycling programme and the huge things we did on recycling a year ago and nobody would talk about them.
Now, we say something and people say you should have done more.

IE: Are you saying that thee Greens will get a bounce like Labour did in 1992?

BA: Not that big. They are getting a bounce. The premier of Newfoundland was here recently. The Greens were 2% of the vote six months ago and now they are on 11%. This is happening worldwide.
There is no analysis of their policies. I have not read one article.
There’s no analysis of what the Greens in this country stand for on anything.
The Government’s policies will be analysed to death. I’d say they are getting away with that in a lot of countries.
They were down there today (during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil) sneering at our climate change policy. I was shown what they said three years ago. They hadn’t a good idea in the bloody document.
Then we put out a document. Our document isn’t made up. It’s what we have done, what we’re doing.
Ok, there’s no doubt about it (in relation to being 24% over the 1990 level of emissions). You say that’s not good enough. That’s fair comment. I have no problem with that.
These guys (the Green TDs) are down there just chipping way.
Do I believe that for a minute if these guys are in Government they would have an idea, you know what they would do, they would just take all of the ideas that FF come up with because most of the stuff we are doing in Government is stuff that FF scientists and guys have given us. We didn’t find this in the system I can tell you.

IE: You could end up being in Government with them? In any case, won’t it be far more complicated than in 2002?

BA: There could be any series of combinations. To answer your fair question, will the Greens do better, or will they be more significant, it’s obvious the answer is, yes.

INSIDE POLITICS -

Since the demise of Scrap Saturday, Irish broadcasters have run scared of proper and substantial political satire - giving us anodyne candy floss like Bull Island. Sure, it's been patchy in Britain since Spitting Image went to ground; though you still get the occasional snakebite coming from the undergrowth (from Chris Morris in particular).

Well over here that vacuum is being filled by politically savvy bloggers, designers and net video enthusiasts. There has been a glut of imaginative satirical material of late poking fun at our political classes (and, by corollary, making serious political points). Some of it has been a bit childish and some has been amateurish; but there's a surprising amount of stuff that has exposed the pro forma and soft PR opportunities that passes for political discourse.

The devilishly good cartoons featured here both comes from a blogger called Green Ink. You should check out the site which has a rake of wonderful cartoons lampooning Bertie and company. I referred last week to those posters featuring Bertie Ahern and their faintly luminous glow. Somebody had suggested that they were Photoshop jobs. Well Green Ink has taken the Photoshop theory to its ultimate conclusion with hilarious results.

OUTSIDE POLITICS - TRAVELLERS

The graph looked like one of those elegant long-necked bottles they sell fancy hooch in. It was broad at the base and then quickly became very thin before tapering off slowly at the top.

A couple of minutes later another graph appeared. It was roughly similar but roughly in the roughest sense of the word. If that second graph was a bottle, it was a bottle of stout, a small squat one at that.

The two graphs represented two different human realities in Ireland. They were part of a presentation by the Central Statistics Office on its analysis of demographic trends from the 2006 Census.

Both of these graphs reflected life expectancy. The first graph depicted the 'settled' population. It showed - unsurprisingly - that people are living longer, hence the elegant long neck.

The second graph was truly shocking. It reflected the same set of statistics as they related to travellers. The proportion of travellers under the age of 20 is enormous but the fall-off after that is shocking, truly shocking. The percentage of travellers who can hope to live behind the ages of 60 is tiny, beyond 70 infinitesimally small, and beyond 80, almost non-existent. Thus, the small squat stout bottle.

The grim and obvious truth is that there's a section of Irish society who, on average, can expect to live up to two decades less than their settled counterparts. That's more than shocking. It's a scandal.

Now, in fairness, the CSO statisticians entered a couple of caveats. The questions relating to travellers in the latest census were new ones that gave rise to variances and certain unreliabilities of comparison. For example, the birth rates, says the CSO, suggests that the actual population of travellers is perhaps a couple of thousand higher than the actual figures. The corollary is that the lower life expectancy figures may also be slightly skewed.

But only slightly. When you see these graphs - the elegant long-necked bottle and the fat squat stout bottle - the only word that can form on your lips is scandal.

This week, the junior minister with responsibility for equality Frank Fahey announced the identity of those who would be on the National Traveller Monitoring and Advisory Committee.

This is not to beat Fahey who has proven to be more pro-active than most other ministers in this regard (with the exception of Chris Flood). But if you look at the ancient beginnings of this committee and its eventual destination way off in the future, it tells a tale of the inertia and inaction that characterises non-priority stuff for government.

Bear with me for a couple of seconds because while the following prose mightn't whizz off the page, it is important. Way back in 1995 - that's 12 years ago - a task force on the travelling community reported its findings. A committee called the traveller monitoring committee was set up to monitor implementation of its recommendations and ten years later produced its second and final progress report.

So what was produced in that decade between 1995 and 2005? What great benefit was derived by society and by its travelling community? This is the equality department's own language describing the situation as it was in 2005: "There was a general view that it needed to be revitalised and made into a more dynamic and forward looking national forum."

In other words, not much happened that made a difference to the lot and lives and status of travellers. And so now we have a new initiative. And it's worthy. And it's headed up by a well-respected former civil servant, Kevin Bonnar. And part of its mandate will be to oversee strategies that increase the participation of travellers in wider society, including finding employment opportunities.

But then, it's part of the Towards 2016 partnership agreement. And when I see the date 2016, I automatically think of long-fingering and another report being produced that year telling us all that we haven't done enough and saying we should all do more to improve the lot of travellers.
Examiner columnist and Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay put it well this week, when talking about another group on the margins of priorities, children.

"I've been involved in writing political manifestos before and I know that at the last minute someone says, 'We need to throw something in there about children'. So it ends up on page 40 of the manifesto."

Because the grim reality is that tangible and real improvements for marginalised people in Irish society can only happen if there is real political will. And for travellers, for those with mental illness, for families who have children with autism, or intellectual or other disabilities, or for the poor and dispossessed, children and adults, there is no real political will.

Political parties pay a lot of lip service to it. But they know that people are more likely to vote with their pockets rather than their conscience.

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - SIMON COVENEY'S CINEMA AD

One of my leath-bhádóirí in our office in Cork rang me to tell me about this. You might be impressed by the billboards of Eugene Regan in Dun Laoghaire, or the Fianna Fail blitzkrieg of the country. But for pure production values, Simon Coveney's slick 29-second ad(being shown in cinemas in Cork) takes the political Oscar for biggest spend of money in supporting role for Dáil seat.

Of course, Simon's ad isn't really electioneering because it's asking young people to vote. But it does the man for whom many have great ambitions no harm at all. The intended subliminal message - and we're taking a wild guess here - is: please vote, and while you're at it, you may as well vote for me.

INSIDE POLITICS - THE MCENTEE COMMISSION

THE McEntee Commission was never intended to be an all-encompassing follow-on to the Barron Report or from those achingly sad hearings where victims and relatives testified before the Oireachtas Justice Committee.


This commission, chaired by the eminent criminal lawyer Patrick McEntee SC, did not have the scope to explore the fundamental questions of collusion that have for 33 years haunted the survivors of the bombings, and the relatives of the 34 people who were killed.

McEntee’s terms were narrower, confined to failings identified in the Republic.

Specifically, it was asked to inquire why the investigations were substantially wound down within three months; why the gardaí did not follow up three significant leads; and why so many of the files and documents went missing.

On the face of it, this commission could not address the wider question of collusion between the loyalist gang responsible for the atrocities and British security services and forces. Collusion could only be dealt with as a possible, but unlikely, explanation for the major shortcomings in the garda inquiries.

But while limited in its scope, the commission was nevertheless charged with finding out why the gardaí did not follow-up on those three leads. To do that it had to try and establish if there was any basis behind those lines of inquiry.

Was there a white van with an English registration parked near the scene of the bombing that was in someway connected with a British army officer? What information was there relating to a Dublin associate of one of the UVF suspects who stayed in the Four Courts Hotel at the time of the bombings? And what about a man identified as a British Armycorporal who was allegedly sighted in Dublin at the time of the bombings?

Each of those three leads necessitated contact with British authorities. The commission was set up in May 2005 and was asked to report back within six months. There were eight extensions before yesterday’s final report. Perhaps all those extensions pitched our expectations beyond what McEntee was all about.

The commission was, like Judge Barron, “hampered by inadequate information”, including the loss and destruction of an “unquantifiable amount of garda documentation”.

The key finding of Mr McEntee in this regard is that there is “no evidence of collusion that supports the ‘winding down’ of the investigations.

The eight extensions to the end-date came about by dint of McEntee’s success in gaining some co-operation from the British authorities. He corresponded with Tony Blair’s office as well as the army, MI6 and MI5 seeking their cooperation in his efforts.

He got a ‘positive response’ to one of the specific questions he asked about the white van with the English registration or the British Army corporal. That led to a meeting with officials form the Northern Ireland office, the British Ministry of Defence and MI5, after which the Commission sought further evidence or documents into these specific lines of inquiry.

New information came to light that had not been available to Barron. However, this was a photocopy of a portion of a longer document. When McEntee sought to see the (entire) original document, the request was refused, because it revealed processes used by the British secret services to obtain intelligence.

However, there was some degree of cooperation. The first, helped track down the owner of the van. It showed the gardaí had interviewed the driver, a captain in the British territorial army, and had correctly concluded he was in no way connected to the atrocity. In fact, McEntee later interviewed him to establish it beyond doubt.

In addition to clearing that up, McEntee also brought finality to speculation on the third allegedly missed lead — the ‘spotting’ of a British corporal sighted in Dublin.

The inquiry, mostly through its legwork, tracked down this corporal and interviewed him. It established conclusively that there was no basis at all to the alleged sighting of him in Dublin on the day of the bombing.

It is the third claimed lead, though, that seems intriguing. This concerns a Dublin-based person who was an associate of one of the prime suspects.

There is new information but privilege has been claimed in respect of it. As a result McEntee has not been able to report and the information or documents over which privilege has been claimed has been sent to the Taoiseach. This is intriguing.

Perhaps this missing piece of the jigsaw could provide the key. More likely though the truth — if it can be found — will only come through a full judicial inquiry. And that will only be possible with full disclosure by all British agencies. And as a possibility, that is — going on past form — very remote indeed.

from Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - Bye Bye Bertie?

Yesterday was (possibly) Bertie Ahern’s last Leaders’ Questions before the General Election.
And, added Pat Rabbitte in a clear case of wishful thinking, possibly Bertie Ahern’s last Leaders' Questions ever.
And for these (possible) valedictory exchanges between Ahern and Rabbitte in the dying days of the Dáil, why change the habit of a lifetime?

Yes, predictably, they tore into each other like two neighbouring parishes involved in a grudge hurling match where they play away and never mind the ball.

And there was a classic example too just for old time’s sake of Bertie the Bystander (the man who tell the Dáil, this is terrible, somebody should do something about this). And you’ll never guess it, there were loads and loads of statistics falling like drizzle around the Dáil chamber.

Ah yes, nothing like the auld reliables. The first swipe came earlier from Rabbitte but he will point to provocation.

He was asking the Taoiseach about the ‘Paddy the Plasterer’ legislation, the Ethics Bill that was promised as a sop to Michael McDowell for BertieGate.

The Taoiseach replied that the legislation had “started in the Seanad and there is no reason it should not get through”.

But then a couple of minutes later, Rabbitte learned it had not yet reached the Seanad.
"The Government Chief Whip tells me," Ahern replied cryptically, "that if the Bill is not in the Seanad it is going to the Seanad."

We knew where this was going. Within a minute Rabbitte was claiming: "There is not a day the Taoiseach comes in here that he does not tell blatant fibs. It is either in the Seanad or it is not."

It led to our favourite crowd-pleaser, the almost daily stand-off between Rabbitte and Ceann Comhairle Rory O’Hanlon. Finally the offending word “fib” was withdrawn but not before the Labour leader got in a couple of extra digs and the Taoiseach showed a flash of temper too.

"I will find out exactly where it is for the Deputy. I will check whether it is in the Whip’s office, stopped on a corridor or sitting on a shelf. If the Deputy wants to get into that kind of precision, two of us can play at that game."

We were all thrilled on the Taoiseach’s (possible) last day ever taking Leaders Questions that Rabbitte then went in for a moment of pure nostalgia when bringing up the subject of private hospitals on public hospital land.

The Taoiseach resorted to his party piece with that catchy chorus: “It will free up 1,000 additional beds”.

And as an encore he gave a rendition of Bertie the Bystander. Private sector buildings would be built years faster than the public sector.

"he length of time it takes for public procurement contracts to get from A to B is just too slow," he said.

It was a searing indictment of the guy with ultimate responsibility for public procurement contracts, whoever he is.

The Greek Chorus on the opposition benches pitched in: “But that’s your job! That’s your job to do!”

And then Trevor Sargent started talking about climate change. It was one of those days. You had to be there.

This is from this mornings Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - THE REAL BERTIE

This is a great example of the clever push-pump video propaganda that is beginning to do the rounds. This one's effectiveness is based on a Dolly Parton track; the predictable images (if you're attacking Fianna Fail you always need to include a mugshot of Martin Cullen) plus the very 'glic' use of superimposed text.

One of the assertions made in the course of a video is very interesting. I have been intrigued by the Fianna Fail posters that have cropped up everywhere in the past week. They show Bertie Ahern talking to elderly couples and to young couples - they include the line: 'Let's take the next step forwards'.

Some of the posters have bathed The Bert in a silvery almost angelic light and they look like one of the utopian pictures that the likes of the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses tend to use. What the video is suggesting is that Bertie's figure has been dropped into the image by the magic of Adope PhotoShop. I don't think that's true for the one with younger people above but it does kind of look like that for one or two of the others.

So, it is true. He is a heavenly creature that only appears by appartition.

INSIDE POLITICS - KENNY GETS CANNY

It’s now almost five years since Enda Kenny became leader of Fine Gael. So stunning was his rise without trace that most people outside the tight-knit world of politics were moved to ask: Enda who?

Kenny became Fine Gael leader at the lowest moment in (almost) the longest losing
streak in modern political history. The backroom people in Fine Gael surveying the train wreck of 2002 knew that, if the party lost again in 2007, the record would read: five successive leaders failed in five successive elections over 20 years.

When Kenny became leader, one of those strategists Frank Flannery wrote a position paper setting out a recovery plan. His key message on Kenny was that they shouldn’t expect a Wedding at Cana miracle – they needed show patience and give Kenny time to develop a persona and authority as a credible leader.

I spent some of the weekend looking over Kenny’s previous Ard Fheis speeches; some more impressive than others. One of the recurring broad themes was that he was not yet the finished article; and still a work in progress. Kenny’s favourite analogy was the GAA and his riff was that the championship hadn’t started yet.

Well. Let’s start from beginning. There is no patience. There is no waiting. The time has now arrived. The moment for judging Kenny’s leadership aura is now. No more work in progress. No more unfinished article. And the championship? Well, we’re approaching the knockout stages.

And cometh the hour cometh the man. Kenny’s leadership address was the strongest, most cogent, most coherent, most mature and most powerful that has been delivered by any leader of any party since the 2002 election.

Seven days beforehand Bertie Ahern had stood on the same stage in the same hall to deliver 30 minutes of non-stop giveaway in a showbiz razzamatazz spectacular.
Kenny’s speech was an exercise of studied contrast. He was conscious of this – conscious that he was plotting a radically different course.

"Last week, another man stood in this hall and made 53 promises," he told the crowded auditorium at City West.

Kenny instead offered only one; that he would not seek re-election as Taoiseach in 2012 if he did not deliver what he promised.

Of course, that wasn’t the only promise. It was the only new promise. In a couple of weeks, the party’s will all publish their manifestos and reveal what we all already know. In Fine Gael’s case, we know just about everything about their policies on crime (as cynically ‘tough’ as all the others); on health (no private hospitals on public land, 2,300 more beds and free GP visits for under fives); and on finances (a E450m stamp duty, tax cuts and incentives for stay-home parents).

But the tenor and tone of Kenny’s address was one of two big calculated gambles the party took this weekend.

The first was its decision to make this election a referendum on health services. The Labour Party in Britain tried that when trying to take on Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and bellyflopped embarrassingly. Fianna Fail did somewhat better when it became the linchpin of their successful 1987 campaign.

It’s still a punt. And when Fianna Fail and the PDs take out the pestle and mortar with the intention of crushing the Mullingar Accord to a pulp, Kenny and Pat Rabbitte will need to convince the electorate that they can be trusted to manage the economy
The second gamble was Kenny’s approach. This was no promise-fest. This was a leader selling himself as honest, trustworthy, a man who would live up to his promises by his deeds. To do that, he made the speech more personal, more exposed, more confessional than any other. In the process, his grandfather, his father, his wife, his children all came powerfully in to the mix.

And to that end, this was the key passage in his speech. "I believe it’s about time a politician stepped up to the line and took responsibility for their actions in government. I am that politician."

I am that politician. It was Enda Kenny saying: I am the finished article. I am a work that is complete. Leave aside your doubts, your reservations, your qualifications. With me you will get honesty, integrity, no litany of broken promises. I am the man for the job.

Within minutes, Brian Lenihan of FF was on to complain about the lack of specifics, the reliance on rhetoric. But he was missing the point. Kenny wasn’t selling policies. He was selling Enda Kenny. For Fine Gael to upset what Bertie describes as the apple tart, it needs to convince them that Kenny can step up to plate. And this arguably, was the moment he did it.

The Contract for a Better Ireland will have a resonance. In a cleverly constructed passage, he set out a long list of failings and alleged failings of this coalition, described (in very simple and broad terms) his vision of what could be achieved. Leaders’ speeches are becoming more like Ernest Hemingway short stories with the repetition of key words and phrases. Last week it was ‘steps to a better Ireland’. With Kenny it was ‘The Contract for a Better Ireland’ and ‘bond’ and promise.

"If you have given me, that most precious and most powerful thing a democrat has, your vote, then I have a moral duty, a democratic duty, a patriotic duty, to live up to my end of the contract. I belive it’s vital that you know just how serious I am. Just how serious this is."

That heady stuff could have left him exposed, especially the passage about his maternal grandfather, James McGinley a Mayo lighthouse keeper.

Did he pull it off? I think so. Kenny has travelled a long road in five years. His reach will never be that of Bertie’s amazing technicolour anorak but he has scored higher on other counts. The Fianna Fail promise-fest last weekend and BertieGate may come back to haunt the party like decentralisation, electronic voting and the latent dishonesty of its ‘no-cuts’ promises in 2002.

The polls show Kenny lagging behind Ahern in terms of popularity and ability but ahead in terms of honesty and integrity. Fine Gael will hope to capitalise on those, hope that the electorate will be swayed by arguments on governance rather than on more promises.

And Kenny’s championship? Well, the way things are panning out, it could be victory by the back door. Fine Gael has clipped its wings a bit in terms of ambition. It’s target seat gain is realistically around the 20 mark – where once it was 30 – means it will rely heavily on a solid Labour performance and a surge for the Greens (with perhaps a few independents thrown in).

There was a perception that Fine Gael had flat-lined since last September. My own instinct is that they’re back in the game. The whole picture is so fragmented now that it increasingly looks that the coalition that emerges later this summer (whether led by FF or FG) will be the most complicated configuration since 1948).

This is my analysis piece from this morning's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - THE OTHER SPEECH

Enda Kenny's speech to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis last night was in marked contrast to the gameshow extravaganza Bertie Ahern gave us last week. It was, most of my political colleagues agreed, the best speech of the conference cycle and probably the best of the past couple of years. There was a studied effort to make it as different as possible to that of Ahern the previous weekend - and it played to all of Kenny's strengths - the perception that he is honest; his personable nature; his ordinary man perception. Much more on this tomorrow...

Meanwhile, the controversy over Ahern's speech rumbles on this morning. Stephen O'Brien in the Sunday Times has a very interesting main lead implying that Brian Cowen, the FF deputy leader, was kept in the dark about it until very late, and the Sunday Independent also lead on it. Stephen Collins column in The Irish Times (subscription) was also excellent. My colleague Paul O'Brien and I both led on the same story last Monday (click here for Irish Examiner story).

The upshot is somebody is either that somebody is telling porkey pies or that some of the most senior ministers are excluded from the deliberations of the cabal of advisers that surrounds Ahern (suggesting that he now has the equivalent of Tony Blair's sofa Government). So who should we believe? Those who tell us that it was planned all along (and I had two separate briefings on Friday to this effect) or those who say that there was a panicky about-turn by Ahern in the run up to the Ard Fheis?

Fianna Fail has made a habit of this. We should call it the hyperventilating stunt. They did it with decentralisation, with electronic voting, with the rash promises of no-cuts made before the 2002 election.

Given the adverse media coverage this weekend, is this another of the stunts that's going to backfire?