INSIDE POLITICS - RABBITTE RESIGNS

Yesterday morning Pat Rabbitte began ringing around his colleagues in the Labour Party. The news he conveyed shocked them to the core, even those who were closest to him. He was resigning with immediate effect, from that very afternoon.

None of the main players within the party had any inclination that Rabbitte was about to cut the rope and bring his five-year leadership of the party to an end.

“It came like a bolt out of the blue,” said Eamon Gilmore the Dun Laoghaire TD. “I am surprised and I am disappointed. I would have liked to see him continue on.”

It was the same for Brendan Howlin:

“It took me completely by surprise when he called me this morning. When I spoke to him earlier this summer when I was offered the position (of Leas Ceann Comhairle) he gave no indication.”

It was well known that Rabbitte was crestfallen after the election. Labour had gone in with 20 seats and returned with the same number. In the immediate aftermath, he described it euphemistically as a standstill election but yesterday’s development showed that – personally – it had gone far deeper than that.

As he himself said yesterday: “In the event, Labour won the same number of seats as in 2002 and failed to replace the existing government. As Leader I take responsibility for that outcome.”

But the other net outcome of the general election was that Rabbitte’s leadership was not in doubt. He had defeated Howlin, Gilmore and Roisín Shortall by a whomping majority in 2002. While a small minority of the party had quibbled with electoral strategy, there was no appetite in the party for another leadership contest, notwithstanding the electoral setback, and the question of his leadership was settled.

His colleagues knew that he was disappointed but underestimated its effects. “Sure, he took a hit but I thought that he’d get over it, lick his wounds and continue leading the party,” said a fellow TD yesterday.

While on his annual holiday in the Kerry Gaeltacht, Rabbitte thought long and hard about the election and his own future. His term of office wasn’t up for another year, until the autumn of next year. Yesterday he said it made no sense for him to stay on until then. That would have meant that a new leader had taken over just months before the local and European elections of 2008. He believed that the best time to go was right at the start of the term.

You couldn’t argue with any of that. Sure, if he was going, it was better to go now. But the bigger question was: why go?

Those close to him said that many underestimated the effect of failing to get into government had on him. Yes it was “unsuccessful only by a narrow margin” as he himself said yesterday but that was still failure.

“He gave the leadership every ounce of his being and energy over five years and he did a great job,” said Gilmore.

And having put that effort in, he decided in Kerry that he did not have the appetite to go once more into the breech. He is now 58 and given that Fianna Fail has covered all angles with its own little rainbow, it’s widely accepted that this Government will last its full term and that Brian Cowen will seamlessly succeed Ahern in 2008 (if the Tribunal goes badly for Ahern) or in 2009 or 2010 (at the latest).
And what the Labour Party needs, according to several of its strategists, is a person who has passion and energy, and has “fire in the belly”.

We will come back to that, but Rabbitte’s resignation brought to an end the career ambitions of one of the country’s most intelligent, able, and colourful politicians.
The native of Ballindine in Co Mayo first distinguished himself as a student leader in University College Galway in the early 70s before becoming the President of the Union of Students in Ireland. He later became a prominent official with the ITGWU union before entering politics full-time.

One major legacy problem that dogged him was his membership of Sinn Fein the Workers Party and its connections to the ‘Stickies’ of the Official IRA. But paradoxically Rabbitte joined the party after the split, having been previously a member of the Labour Party (he resigned because of his opposition to the 1973 coalition with Fine Gael).

And though the Workers’ Party (later Democratic Left) never really succeeded in becoming much more than a marginal presence, the party was notable for the quality of its parliamentarians – including Rabbitte, Gilmore, Proinsias de Rossa, and Liz McManus (who is now the acting Labour leader).

Indeed, when DL went into the Rainbow Coalition in late 1994, Rabbitte became a ‘super junior’ and one of the highest profile members of government, deservedly praised for his far-seeing drugs strategy.

An acerbic wit and brilliant parliamentarian, he became a darling of the media because of the ease and brilliance with which he rounded his thoughts and his hilarious put-downs. But there was an occasional arrogance and distance about him that some thought off-putting – and a sense that he could not translate his Dáil form to the streets, and could not relate to ordinary Joe Schmoes in the street in the way that Bertie Ahern did.

But Rabbitte’s performance on the hustings in the election campaign surprised everybody, showing far more appetite for the plod and flesh-pressing on the hustings. And despite going one witticism too far comparing Michael McDowell to a ‘menopausal Paris Hilton’ he was the hands-down winner of the TV debate.

But like all the smaller parties, it just didn’t happen for Labour. Some colleagues (particularly Howlin) put it down to the Mullingar Accord and the deal with Fine Gael. But Rabbitte believed it went deeper than electoral strategy.

“As regards (strategy), I remain absolutely convinced that it was correct to offer the people a choice of an alternative government,” he said yesterday. “It was not successful but unsuccessful only by a narrow margin… It would be a mistake to restrict the debate to electoral strategy.

“Whereas the core values of Labour are timeless and immutable, we must accept that Irish society has changed and we must change.”

Elsewhere he described it as the ‘brand’. Unions no longer wield the same emotional draw. People’s definition of working class, of blue collar, their expectations of politics, of how society should be ordered, has changed radically.

(For Rabbitte's own analysis of the election, follow this link. It is his delivery of the Jim Kemmy Lecture to the Tom Johnson Summer School in Galway)

It’s clear somebody else will have to be the architect of that change. The party can’t really skip a generation like it did in the early 1980s with Dick Spring. It’s too early in their careers for any of its three new TDs. The others, if not of Rabbitte’s generation, are very close to it.

Surprising though the announcement was, Pat Rabbitte was right. If the party wants to renew itself, the time to do is now.

INSIDE POLITICS - LOOK UP IT'S AER LINGUS AND A FLYING PIG

On Politics
Harry McGee
Politics, during the summer, is as dead as vaudeville. Of course at the same time we need to ink our pages, even during the most taciturn and underwhelming days of silly season.
Since the dawn of civilisation, government ministers tend to disappear during August leaving one or two ministers on duty during the month.
On very slow weeks, somebody will mention at a news conference that the Taoiseach is out of the country.
That will lead to the inevitable question from a senior editorial person: “Well if he’s abroad, who else had skived off? And who has been left behind to run the country?”
Occasionally, fate will deliver a golden hand and intelligence will come back confirming that the only minister who’s still around is the most junior, gaffe-prone, incompetent, ill-regarded and generally hated minister.
The next step in the process will be to find a crisis of some kind– no matter how unimportant or infinitesimally small – and then take the silk purse (a marginal rise in unemployment figures; some hospital cock-up) and make a proper pig’s ear of it.
CRISIS AND LOOK WHO’S LEFT RUNNING THE COUNTRY? will scream the (totally unjustified and totally over-the-top) headline, the following morning.
Yes, it’s cynical and it can be a cheap shot. But it can also be highly effective. John Prescott was Tony Blair’s deputy prime minister and the man in charge of the country when the PM was abroad. But the man who was nominally running the country was photographer playing croquet with his staff in his summer residence. That did untold damage to the country.
Last Sunday we saw this at the worst when the Sunday Independent launched Scuds of outrage and bombast in the direction of Tánaiste Brian Cowen. His crime? He had gone off on holidays to the Algarve. The crisis? The housing market had collapsed and the economy was in freefall. I don’t know about you but somehow I didn’t notice Armageddon last weekend. It just seemed to pass me right by.
The fact is that crises during the summer are more manufactured than real. The last really deep crisis to beset a government here happened in the summer of 1982 with the sensational news that a double murder suspect Malcolm Macarthur had been staying in the flat of the then Attorney General, Patrick Connolly. The A-G was due to fly out on his holidays to the US the next day and refused to alter his plans. The Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was on his holiday island of Inisvickilaun and either at the end of either a very bad line or a very good wine. When first contacted he didn’t grasp the depth of the crisis. The following day – when all hell broke loose – he cottoned on very quickly.
But then,
Then just when we though silly season had reached its nadir, along comes a real crisis. Not only did it catch the Government completely off guard, it also found both main opposition parties with their eye off the ball – their transport spokespeople were nowhere to be seen (or heard) earlier this week.
What was extraordinary about the Aer Lingus story was that, for once, the ‘who’s left running the country?’ attack was valid. Since the its announcement on Tuesday, the Government has given us the benefit of one full sentence. The Taoiseach won’t speak. The Minister for Transport won’t speak. The Minister for Enterprise won’t speak. The Minister for Finance won’t speak. And only belatedly did the Minister for Defence speak. Willie O’Dea said he was aghast at the disgraceful decision. Sure, wasn’t everybody in the mid-west similarly aghast.
The question for O’Dea is: what is the Government going to do about it? It’s all very well for Willie O’Dea to criticise Aer Lingus but if the Taoiseach and the relevant government ministers are not going to do anything, or not even going to say anything, all he’s involved in is a exercise to give him political cover.
The Government made a huge play about safeguarding Heathrow slots and ensuring balanced regional connectivity when it allowed Aer Lingus to cut the apron strings. Was this part of an under-the-table deal? Did senior Government ministers really only learn last Friday? Why didn’t the Government use its 25.4% shareholding as leverage?
The capitulation of deed and word has been a disgrace. And the Government’s continuing silence is an insult to the people of the mid-west and also to its back-bench TDs. The problem with third-term governments isn’t that the citizens begin to grow indifferent to them; it’s that they begin to grow indifferent to the citizens.

INSIDE POLITICS - THE FINAL MOMENTS

By midnight on the night of the election count, it was clear that Fianna Fail would need to court the support of others if it wanted to get back into Government.

The party had done astoundingly well but even with its impressive haul of 78 seats was tantalisingly close but not quite there. To put it in a mountaineering vein, Everest is 8,850 metres high but the last few hundred metres is the hardest.

It was hardly a unique position for Fianna Fáil to find itself in. They were a couple short five years ago. But then the PDs had eight TDs and that was never going to be a problem. And they also found themselves coming up short in 1997. And it’s those events of ten years ago that makes the courting of the Greens so remarkable.

Bertie Ahern’s first election as leader of Fianna Fail saw the party win 77 seats. The PDs hit a bit of a trough that time, returning only four. The combined strength of both parties was 81. The situation facing Fianna Fail a decade later is uncannily similar. Granted, together they have one less at 80. But now, as then, there are enough independents there to allow them forge a deal.

So why have they worked so hard to put together what amounts to the State’s first Fianna Fail-led Rainbow rather than relying only on the traditional props of the PDs and ‘like-minded independents’?

On the face of it, it’s hard to fathom. On the Sunday morning following the election, Bertie Ahern spoke of the PDs and the Independents being his first preference and the Greens being his clear second preference.

And that seemed to make sense. If you rewind to 1997, the consensus was that FF and the PDs could do it with only two gene pool deputies. In the event, they secured the support of four non-aligned TDs (but all with hues of Fianna Fail, from light to deep). Then, many people predicted the government would last a year. But it lasted five, without any real bother.

So why change such a winning arrangement? The PDs needed to be in Government in order to survive. And FF would just need to secure the services of only three independents (though only one with a provenance in the party).

For the Greens, last week’s marathon talks with Fianna Fail was their political coming of age. Forty hours of tough negotiations were grinding – and you could see the tiredness etched all over John Gormley and Dan Boyle’s face on Friday evening.

When they broke down after six days, a whole host of theories (benign, conspiracy and Machiavellian) started doing the rounds. One was that FF were only stringing the Greens along to make sure the independents didn’t demand too much in their separate negotiations? The other prime theory it was all designed to muddy the waters and allow FF to enter negotiations with its real target, the Labour Party. Pat Rabbitte committed his party to support Enda Kenny until the vote for Taoiseach on Thursday – after that all votes would be off.

But anyone who watched the body language of both parties on Friday evening knew there was something else afoot. At their press conference Greens looked exhausted, disappointed – as if the race had been run. But within half an hour, one of the FF negotiators Seamus Brennan was on RTE’s Six-One News. He was remarkably upbeat and positive and grabbed every available second to praise Trevor Sargent and the Greens. In the background, the Fianna Fail negotiators were sanguine and relaxed. It wasn’t all over. The Greens no longer had the deadline of the special meeting on Sunday looming over them. If they took a bit of time to reflect on it over the weekend, both sides could return for a second bite.

And that’s how it happened. Informal contacts continued over the weekend. And in a remarkable article in a Sunday newspaper, Bertie Ahern used language you would never imagine him using in his political career.

"I belive that an environmentally sustainable economy is the only way forward for Ireland and the planet."

Bertie Ahern? It could have been taken straight out of a Sargent speech. That was very significant. And there was more. FF were genuinely open to new ideas. In the problem areas like climate change, transport, health and education, – where all the “insurmountable” obstacles were– Fianna Fail believed that the Green Party’s policies were “not incompatible” with our own. John Gormley gave a clear signal on RTE Radio’s This Week programme that the Greens were willing to talk. Within minutes FF had contacted him. The game was back on.

The speed at which things resumed was as breath-taking as last week. Within hours the Greens had produced a paper on the areas where there were differences. By noon yesterday, Fianna Fail had responded. All afternoon, negotiators from both parties shuffled between their headquarters and the Dail to take part in a series of bilaterals and informal talks.

The parties began drafting a programme for government based on agreed areas. The ‘bit ticket’ areas where there was still contention were parked. And from early afternoon, it was clear that those issues would be thrashed out by two men, Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent.

Ahern arrived into Government buildings in late afternoon, departed for a short while and then returned. Shortly before 7pm, Sargent left his party headquarters to make the short ten minute walk to Leinster House. He was accompanied by general secretary Dónall Geoghegan. John Gormley cycled home to change his shirt. The third negotiator, Dan Boyle, in Leinster House. Gormley and Boyle said that there were still gaps, that it wasn’t a done deal.

“Close but no cigar,” said Boyle, summing up the delicate balance between success and failure.

But why did FF go to such efforts to woo the Greens if they didn’t really need them? It was nothing to do with filibustering. It was partly the security of numbers, certainly. But there was also a sense that 15 years of FF and the PD would make it into a tired unelectable government – that the Greens would give renewal and reinvigoration, make the government as a whole more attractive to the next generation.

And that's why later on this morning the Greens will walk out of Government Buildings with a deal.

A version of this appeared in this morning's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - TO THE WIRE

It's 8.25pm. A small piece of geography first. There are two entrances to Leinster House, one on Kildare Street and one on Merrion Street. Kildare Street is the front entrance. But the Merrion Street entrance is where Government Buildings are. I'll come back to this in a mo.

Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent have been closeted in Government Buildings for an hour now, trying to see if they can find some agreement on the contentious issues. We have already had four final deadlines, so nobody will be too surprised if it slips onto tomorrow.

The Greens have been around all afternoon. John Gormley cycled home about 45 minutes ago to change his shirt. Ciaran Cuffe had to go home to mind his kids. Dan Boyle put the state of play of negotiations best when we bumped into him at the Plinth at the front of Leinster House.

"Close but no cigar."

We will know very soon if there's a Government, or at least one that involves the Greens.

So why the intro about the two entrances.

Well, here are the likely scenarios:

If the Greens do strike a deal, then Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent will walk shoulder to shoulder out from Government Buildings on the Merrion Street side.

If there is no deal, then Trevor Sargent will lead the Greens out the front entrance of Leinster House on the Kildare Street side.

Reporters who are camping out awaiting development face a kind of Hobson's choice. If they are pessimists they will hang around the Kildare Street side; while the optimists have gravitated over to the Merrion Street side.

Wish everthing in politics could be as clear-cut as that choice!

INSIDE POLITICS - THE 11TH HOUR AND TICKING...

Experiencing what's going on between Fianna Fail and the Green is almost like intruding on somebody else's courtship. Yesterday morning I texted one Green Party insider to ask what was happening. The reply:

"No official contact yet just the fluttering of eyelashes across newsprint"

That brings us to Bertie Ahern's article in the Sunday Indo yesterday. (Incidentally, apropos nothing in particular, why do the amazing FF scoops the Sindo have got for the past three weeks remind you of the immortal phrase 'Payback Time'). If they could have got the end of the sentences to rhyme, it could have been one of the great love sonnets.

Gone was the man who told an Ogra Fianna Fail conference last February that he wouldn't cut, shovel or dig with those johnny-come-latelys.

Instead we had a sensitive troubadour who had the whole package instead of an acoustic guitar and a flower in his hair.

There was one sentence in particular that I thought that Bertie would never utter in a million years:

"I believe that an environmentally sustainable economy is the only way forward for Ireland and the planet."

There you go. And the rest of it was astounding. That Fianna Fail was genuinely open to new ideas, to the concerns of the other side, and that he saw a lot of merit (which makes a big change from the past five years) in some of their suggestions.

And then he came to the policy areas where the biggest gaps are: on transport; health an education. The policies of both parties were "not incompatible" with each other.

What a phrase! What a politician!

So what was the strategy? There has been a lot of speculation that Fianna Fail misinterpreted the Greens, that they took what was a fundamental problem for the Greens as a bit of tactical brinkmanship. That could be true. But while the Greens felt it was more or less over, the immediate reaction from FF was stunning.

From the Seamus Brennan interview on Friday night, it became clear that FF wanted to go back to see if they could get a second bit. Maybe part of their thinking was that it was pointless adhering to the Greens timetable of holding the meeting on Monday. By stopping on Friday there was no meeting. That particular monkey would be off the Greens back. Both sides could pause and reflect on the totality and reality of the situation.

It's 5.30pm on Monday now. Bertie Ahern is apparently in Government buildings. The Greens are involved in bilaterals on some of the issues, mainly non-contentious ones.
The contentious issues will probably be dealt with - we are told - by both leaders, if it comes to that. There has been some progress today but we are still in the dark as to whether the problems that were insurmountable have now become surmountable.

The Greens are also working against the clock. They need an agreement this evening or tonight if they are to convene the special meeting of their members on Wednesday. Much more will become known over the next hour or two.

INSIDE POLITICS - BREAKDOWN OF NEGOTIATIONS

On Politics
Harry McGee
It is decreed by nature that school examinations and talks on coalition government can only take place when the sun is splitting the rocks and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

This week must have felt like doing the Leaving Certificate again for the Fianna Fail and Green Party negotiators, cooped up indoors in an intense, tortuously long and energy-sapping experience, trawling through the minutiae derived from dense texts.


And as the exhausted Green party negotiators emerged into the June sunshine yesterday evening, they had the look of students who got a little tripped up by a trick question on the honours paper.

In a week that wavered between hope and despondency for both parties, it looked for a couple of hours early yesterday afternoon that a deal might be possible.

Both sides had compromised on a lot of issues during these marathon talks that ultimately lasted over six days. But the Fianna Fail negotiators thought yesterday afternoon that enough had been offered, that there was more than a sliver of hope that a deal could be forged. But as the afternoon wore on, it became clear that it was all slipping away. The three-person negotiating team for the Green Party went back to the wider reference group (comprised of 12 key members including the six TDs and Dan Boyle). And it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

It was always going to be difficult. The gulfs between policy and outlook were of Grand Canyon proportions. The biggest were identified early and were never bridged, were never close to being bridged.

strangely, we look at the potentially explosive mix of the Greens and the PDs and think of blockage. But that was never the issue. Indeed, last night the PDs confirmed that Mary Harney had signed up to a Bertie Ahern-led government on Thursday morning and Brian Cowen said as much yesterday as he entered the talks. And while the Greens say that this did not form any part of the negotiations, it’s clear that there was an – let’s phrase it delicately – an unspoken understanding that the PDs would be part of the mix.

The talks, instead, foundered on ideological gaps on a range of policy areas. Trevor Sargent spelt out some of them at the press conference yesterday.
The Greens, being the Greens, wanted more urgent action on climate change. Nothing would have outranked that from their perspective. This, after all, is what the party is about. Sure it is more savvy politically than in the past but there were core principles like this one that were never going to be sacrificed on the altar of expediency.

There were no specifics. But it’s as clear as a pikestaff that they argued for carbon taxes and a 3% annual reduction in carbon emissions. It’s likely that it also argued for congestion charges and – of course, another Green pillar – prioritising public transport over road-building.

There were other areas of disagreement. None were specified by either side last night but health, education, planning and local government just proved to be massive stumbling blocks.

"In each of these areas substantial blockages still remain. Because of this, the party does not believe it could enter government and stand over the policy proposals."

What was intriguing was that the talks had no concluded in bitterness or recrimination. They had taken place in a cordial fashion and the Greens had learned a lot during the process. But it was over. There was not enough give from either side.
The Greens could not sell what was on offer to its membership.

And while both sides said yesterday that their doors remained open, it is unlikely that they will revive the process. The gulf is still too wide. Time is against them. It’s almost certain now that Bertie Ahern will pursue the narrower option with the PDs and independents.

Fianna Fail had a massive advantage going into the negotiations. Its 78 seats meant that it didn’t ultimately need the greens, and so winning its support would be mainly a ‘belts and braces’ operation.

Its seriousness was clear - that was immediately evident from the composition of its vastly experienced team of Cowen, Dempsey and Brennan.

From its perspective, the Greens displayed a little naivety at times during negotiations. Cowen and Dempsey put a lot of emphasis on the financial costs of some of the Greens proposals. It was felt that their lack of experience in government gave them a certain lack of appreciation of the money aspects of what they proposed.

Stranger coalitions have been formed since 1948 but those governments have been forged on the anvil of necessity. Here there was none. Ultimately FF could take it or leave it as an optional multiple choice. But in the end, like the A students they are, they decided to stick to what they knew best. Enter Mary Harney, Jackie Healy Rae and Beverly Flynn.

INSIDE POLITICS - GREEN BY NAME, GREEN BY NAIVETY?

I was off for the last couple of days, down in Kerry as it happened, where the eavesdropped conversation in pubs and cafes was mostly - surprise, surprise - about politics and not about Big Brother.

Upon arriving back, I discovered that by missing two full days of talks I had missed, erm, nothing. When the Greens came out of Government buildings last night, they gave the same essential answer they had given for the previous five days... that some progress had been made but that there were significant gaps (or should that read gulf or canyons) between them on policy issues.

Naturally, there was a greater sense of urgency about last night. It had been nominally chosen as the deadline for concluding the talks, given that the Greens must go through a process of putting any potential deal to its party membership.

Dan Boyle's own slightly rueful assessment of it was very telling:

"We went into these talks on the basis that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

It seems that we have agreed a lot and then after talking for five days it also seems like we have agreed nothing."

For in reality, the huge gaps that were identified on the very first day of talks last weekend were the ones that looked like denying a deal. They were parked but when they returned to them, it's clear that Fianna Fail wasn't in a mood of being over-generous or of bending over backwards.

FF is in a position of staggering dominance. It doesn't really need the Greens. It has 78 deputies compared to a measly six for the Greens. You can understand where it's coming from. The Greens want to ban corporate donations. It's a core principle for the party, says Trevor Sargent. Well Fianna Fail don't want to ban corporate donations. And it's a core principle for FF. So, FF might agree to make the system a little bit more transparent (or in reality, given the impression that it is making the system more transparent) but otherwise it's not going to budge.

Where does that leave the Greens? It means they have to try to wring concessions from FF in other key areas, where there may be more give. What are they? Environmental issues certainly, including carbon taxes and more robust initiatives to tackle climate change. The health services and the controversial co-location project. The economy, especially FF's determination to reduce the higher rate of tax by a further 1%.

There is a difference in the decision-making process within both parties that has been emphasised by this process. Whatever the political leadership decided in the two big parties, the membership and the other politicians go along with. We've heard a couple of FF backbenchers griping about the Greens this week but if a deal is struck they'll just have to button up and go along with it.

I remember doing a phone-around of FF TDs after the 1992 election. I spoke to about 40 in all. All but one (Micheál Martin, as it happened) swore blind that they'd rather sup with the divvil than go into a coalition with the Labour Party. Then the deal happened and they all meekly went along with it. Harsh political lesson number one. Never forget that FF and FG backbenchers are the chorus line.

With the Greens it's different. Their membership wield a lot of power. A two-thirds majority of the 700-800 delegates expected at the Mansion House will be required. The negotiating team know that they need to present a strong deal with loads of tangibles to sell. If it's seen as too much of a capitulation - a sell-out of the most important core principles to go into Government - it spells only one thing.... c-u-r-t-a-i-n-s.

They've resumed this morning and will be there for another two hours at least, until 1pm and maybe a little later.

And even on the off-chance - and it is an off-chance - that a deal is struck, we may still not have a government. The next stage will be consideration of, and by, the PDs. There's a game of chess being played. Not only aren't we in the room to witness it. We don't know the rules. Worse, we don't even know if there are any rules.

INSIDE POLITICS - THE SOUND OF SILENCE

The Dáil returns on June 14. We will have a Government then, one that you can confidently say will be Fianna Fail led, will also be Bertie Ahern led.

Right now, we are stuck in the political version of a holding pattern over Heathrow Airport. There is some movement but it is circular. The Labour Party parliamentary party is meeting today. The residue of a party once known as the PDs is meeting also.

Fine Gael have been busily selling the line that the FF win wasn't really that much of a FF win and that FG were the real winners, so much so that they might surprise us all and form the next government. To that end, Enda Kenny has met with just about ever entity that isn't FF or SF.

Even if he were to pull it off, and cobble together a government more complicated than the 1948 arrangement, it would be so precarious, so inherently unstable that it would hardly last a year. I think the current FG leadership is playing a longer game. On the one hand it's posturing a little, anticipating any leadership challenge, ensuring that Enda's leadership is a continuity one. The message: he's ready to step into the breech now and at any time as Taoiseach. Secondly, they are planting the notion in people's minds that if a FF-led coalition collapses, then it might not be necessary to go to the country.

Having said that, FF have the chips stacked on their side of the table. For once, I don't think we have to take a Machiavellian reading of Bertie Ahern's intentions. He wants the PDs and the independents first, and then the greens. The problem with the first constellation is question marks over Beverly Flynn €1.5 million debt to RTE. The majority will be wafer-thin - and it would be difficult for the government to last the course. I think the upper echelons of the FF leadership are not too gone on the Greens either - and it goes beyond its concerns about so-called flakey policies to the attacks that the Greens have made on FF's relationship with developers.

If there were an agreement with the Greens it might be more stable.

But looking at the numbers, you suspect that what FF might try for is a wider coalition involving FF, the two PDS, the six Greens, and one or two sympathetic independents.

FF and Labour? I just don't see it. Let's be real about this. Pat Rabbitte ruled it out. If there was wiggle room in what he has said in the past six months, its so infinitesimally small as to be negligent.

Fintan O'Toole's column in the Irish Times yesterday made a cogent argument for this set-up, saying it would guarantee both ten years of Government, could see the successors of Pearse and Connolly ruling the country at the time of the 100th anniversary of 1916. It makes sense for a Brian Cowen led FF. The problem with the thesis is that it's not a Brian Cowen led FF and won't be for at least another two and a half years.

And the Tribunals. It will cause Ahern trouble. Not now. None of his opponents have any appetite to take FF on for a third time over BertieGate. Ahern has already scored two emphatic victories over this. But the patterns in politics often mirror closely the patterns in sport - and yes, sport always provides a vivid dayglo metaphor for the human condition!. In championship fare, you often see teams demolish its opposition for three or four games in a row and then be set up as untouchable or as raging hot favourites. For all that, sometimes in the game that you least expect it, they put in an insipid performance and exit tamely. This might happen here. After the heroic seeing off of his detractors, the Taoiseach might be felled in the end by something small and seemingly insignificant - the piece of straw that will have broken the camel's back .

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?

INSIDE POLITICS - PROMISES, PROMISES

This árd fheis will not be about making promises that we cannot deliver, Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said on Thursday.

Where did we hear that line before?

Oh, yes, here in fact. In this column last week we quoted Seamus Brennan saying that Fianna Fáil’s árd fheis will not be about making promises that we cannot deliver.

We all know what happened after that. We found ourselves caught in a monsoon. It might have lasted only half an hour, but it left the political establishment wholly swamped.

This column, for one, was suckered last week. It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to admit that it included this ultra confident prediction: “Unlike other party conferences held so far this season, I don’t anticipate any major announcement on tax cuts, on stamp duty, on tax bands, or on anything that’s going to cost a ball of cash down the line.”

How wrong can you be? Very wrong in my case, though, in fairness, I wasn’t alone in being duped.

So when Fine Gael start telling us that they’re not going to make any promises they can’t deliver, forgive us as we laugh hysterically while quickly finding a spare patch of sand to bury our heads in.

In fairness, you can be sure that Fine Gael won’t be making any major tax announcements for the simple reason that they have already made all their major tax announcements already.

The first part of it was the 2% cut in the standard rate, the Labour part of the deal. Fine Gael’s own portion is the proposed cuts in stamp duty Enda Kenny announced on a slow Thursday during a visit to Rathkeale.

That begged a number of questions. Why then? Why not wait until the árd fheis where you can get maximum impact for expensive — yet definitely populist — concessions on stamp duty?

Part of the answer to this became evident last night during Kenny’s opening speech to the conference and his key line that “the General Election this year will be a referendum on this Government’s handling of the health services”.

That is what you’d call a “raise on the blind” in poker parlance. It is by any measure a massive gamble, saying that the election will turn on health rather than on the economy without fully knowing if those cards will be revealed.

Sure, health is always a core issue. But will a party’s policies on health be more swayable for a majority of voters than its economic and financial policies? It’s a big call. But it has been made: you can see this calculation playing through in the themes that the party has chosen for this morning’s live TV coverage of debates — crime and health.

And yes, like Seamus Brennan a week earlier, Richard Bruton insisted this week that this árd fheis will not be a manifesto launch.

But given that the party will have an almost unfettered chance to push its agendas and candidates this weekend, I’ll be very surprised if there aren’t a couple of major announcement.

But the difference will be that big surprises will be in the areas of health and crime rather in tax, stamp duty or other wallet-fatteners.

Seamus Brennan worried about promises the opposition made and their potential to bankrupt the country. I don’t think (here I go again; a fool never learns) anything Fine Gael will promise this weekend will bankrupt the country financially.

But there are other ways of bankrupting a country. At present, the Oireachtas is debating a draconian piece of legislation proposing tough mandatory sentences, erosions to the right of silence, seven-day detention, restrictive bail laws including electronic monitoring. In the dying days of this government, it has been rushed through quicker than a Bertie Ahern árd fheis promise.

The problem is that there’s no opposition to it from the big parties. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael (and to a lesser extent Labour) do their Big Bad Wolf impressions huffing and puffing at each other to see who’s toughest. And the perverse creation and ratcheting-up of a crime crisis that simply doesn’t exist has led to the most cynical auction of all.

At last year’s árd fheis, Enda Kenny promised drunk tanks, among other hardchaw policies. That was scary. I’m worried he’ll go too far this year, establish Fine Gael’s law and order credentials by suggesting something even crazier than the Government’s crazy policies; and end up overbidding at an auction that can leave us
all bankrupt when it comes to justice, proportionality and morality.

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner.
Read Enda Kenny's opening address to the FG Ard Fheis here

INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE: ALL SCHLOCK, NO HORROR

THE way Fianna Fáil plays it is always pure Hollywood.


The body count is always high. Our heroes will have survived more scrapes than Indiana Jones and 007 combined. But somehow — despite all the odds — they emerge triumphant at the end.

It’s not that Fianna Fáil hasn’t shipped damage as the plot of this election has thickened. It has. Where do you begin? Decentralisation; electronic voting; BertieGate and debts of honour; nursing home charges; the sly cuts after the 2002 election; the CC case and statutory rape controversy; Eddie Hobbs and ‘Rip-Off Republic’; the Ivor Callely and Seán Haughey mess; the shifting mists that were Bertie Ahern’s views on Charlie Haughey; and, come to think of it, on everything else! And then there were the minor sub-plots: the exiling of Beverly Flynn and the utterly anonymous Michael Collins.

But the party clearly calculates that none of these — individually or collectively — will be enough to swerve it off course. The party felt emboldened enough earlier this week that the election will be fought on just one issue. And what is that? The Big E. No, not the environment, sadly. It’s the economy stupid.

Séamus Brennan set the tone when he began Fianna Fáil’s first bit of ‘pre-taliation’ by accusing the opposition of spendthrift flagrancy in their policies so far. These would end up costing billions and could bankrupt the country, claimed Brennan in his most sincere ‘I’m not messing now’ voice.

Of course, the corollary to that is that Fianna Fáil has kept its powder dry so far and is sure to announce its own lucky bag of goodies (of course, also costing billions) closer to the election.

Of course, the 71st Ard Fheis this weekend is an election one. But what’s interesting when you flick through the clár and observe the confident body language of ministers is this: they believe that the Big E will bring them home in 2007, as it did in 2002.

There will be no death by a thousand cuts this time. Yes, all those issues will be a factor. Some will hurt electorally. And, of course, the health and crime crises are biggies and could inflict potentially massive holes below the waterline.

But the net conclusion is that none is big enough to down FF completely. The party is like an SSIA account holder who has gone down the equity route. With only one month left it is hoping that no sharp shocks or corrections happen on stock markets that could put it all in jeopardy.

In the world of politics that means an A&E disaster; a CC case or Fr Brendan Smyth-type scandal; or an announcement from one of the huge technology companies that its ditching us for Timbuktu or Bora Bora.

And having done the political calculus, the Taoiseach and his closest aides have come to the conclusion that the economy out-trumps them all. The thinking goes: ‘The only thing that has made all these things possible — from roads to health to childcare — has been a thriving economy. And the only party that can guarantee the Big E is FF.’

Look at the slogan. “Leading Ireland Forward“. It could as easily be, More of the Same, or, Five More Years.

Listen to what Brennan had to say this week about this: “The task ahead in the future is to keep that going, not to put it at risk and to protect that economic development.”

Expect Ahern to expand on that in his presidential address tonight. Unlike other party conferences held so far this season, I don’t anticipate any major announcement on tax cuts, on stamp duty, on tax bands, or on anything that’s going to cost a ball of cash down the line. Not this weekend, maybe later (though there will be a couple of news lines to feed us ever-hungry news hounds).

The purpose this weekend will, therefore, be to rally the troops, for Ministers to bask in the glory of their mini fiefdoms, and an effort to portray a Government on top of its game.

Bertie Ahern is the poorest public speaker of them all, though Trevor Sargent gave him a good run for his money at the Green Ard Fheis last month. But that doesn’t matter. Bertie is still his party’s biggest asset. His worth to the party lies beyond oratory, in that ethereal quality that can be described only as Bertiality. And its effect has not worn off enough to prevent his face from adorning a lamp-post near you.

Yep, in true Hollywood tradition, what Fianna Fáil is really planning is ‘2002: The Sequel.’

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner

Click Here!

By the way, this is Bertie Ahern's opening address to the conference last night. He majored on the environment - it's definitely get scared of the Greens time!

INSIDE POLITICS - The Hurricane of Hype

WHO is the star of this week’s column? Take a wild guess. If you happened to die and are now pushing up daisies, you might not have noticed him this week.


Of if you happen to be an anchorite monk living on a remote island sometime in the 6th century, there’s a slim chance that he may not have crossed your path.

For everybody else, there was no escape. From the moment he choked on his Corn Flakes last Sunday morning, Michael McDowell has reacted to Labour’s tax coup by invading our every waking moment, policing our thoughts, and trying to wash, like rain, the trashy Labour promises off the pavement.




On Monday, he introduced the techniques of Sumo wrestling to Irish political discourse. In a matter of mere seconds, his ferocious and fierce onslaught removed Pat Rabbitte from the ring. The winning technique? Haiku. “I want to say this about the speech that Pat Rabbitte made the other night. That speech proves that he is now admitting that he has been talking rubbish for 20 years. He has attacked every aspect of our tax policies. He’s voted against them in every Finance Bill.

“He has denied our argument that tax rates matter. And here he is now saying, after 20 years of empty, unsuccessful, hypocritical rhetoric, that he accepts he is wrong. What a sadmoment for him.”

This outburst came during a so-called doorstep interview, where the politician takes questions (usually on the street) from reporters. There were no questions here. McDowell walked up the reporters, delivered his broadside, said “I’m finished” and walked away again. A few reporters sniggered. But for McDowell there was nothing funny about this.

For this was a Labour leader having the cheek to encroach on his territory. Though what came across washumorous, what bubbled inside was toil and trouble. This column has said it before: McDowell is a one-man walking Atlantic weather system. This week, it was storm force 10 stuff coming in furiously with no respite.

The really scary bit is that all this is just the lead-up to the Progressive Democrats national conference this weekend. You might have noticed the sly reference above to Travis Bickle, the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s classic film, Taxi Driver. On Tuesday, McDowell did his own bit of scary “you looking at me” stuff when he announced a package of anti-crime measures. The Tánaiste has a tendency to announce his measures in the manner that Twink introduced John Bruton at a Fine Gael Árd Fheis a long time. You initially think, great stuff, and then you think, this is over-the-top, and then you think, oh, God, this is going to finish up badly.

His crime package sounded very impressive on first hearing. Suspects could be detained for seven days. There were tighter measures for bail; further curtailments of the right to silence, as well as provisions to introduce the long-awaited DNA database.

But then we found out it was all based on an interim (and rushed)report of the expert group charged with re-balancing the law.

Not only that, but the package of measures didn’t include legislation — only an intention to legislate.

So what was that all about then? Optics? In reality, by the time that package becomes law, the general election will be but a dim memory.

McDowell wanted to give the impression he was being tough on crime (as usual the “crisis” has been hyped up by politicians and the media). Now he has come up with illusory measures to remedy an illusory crisis.

For one thing hit me between the eyes in the recent Frank Luntz focus group exercise for RTÉ. Crime was identified as a huge issue. Yet, not one of the group had been a victim of crime in the past five years, save for one guy who got his chainsaw nicked. And why were they all scared to walk the streets, leave the key in the door etc? They said it was because the media told them so. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

Of course, the Tánaiste didn’t leave it there. He was just warming himself up. On Wednesday, he took on the Mahon Tribunal, claiming its legal bill could top €1 billion. By Thursday, that row deepened into a full-blown crisis. Characteristically, he robustly stood by his word that night, setting up the second grave stand-off with the judiciary in as many months. And that was the same day, he promised he would big it up at the PDs’ conference in Wexford, with his own proposals on tax cuts and stamp duty.

Batten down the hatches folks. A hurricane of hype and histrionics is fast approaching from the South East.

(This is my column from today's Irish Examiner)

INSIDE POLITICS - The other big thing besides Croker that happened on Dublin's Northside this weekend

Yes, goalposts (real and figurative) were being shifted all over the place on Dublin's Northside this weekend.

Labour's pre-election conference marked the moment when Pat Rabbitte officially got sick of being asked questions about Fianna Fail and possible courtships.

How he did it in three easy steps.

1. Testy attitude when being interviewed by John Bowman. We're 22 minutes into the interview and you haven't asked me questions about policy yet!

2. Brutally blunt passage in his own keynote speech intended to draw a line under the issue. This is it:

In recent weeks I have been asked not about policy or programmes or reforms, but whether, on electoral strategy, I have left the door even slightly ajar. The answer is no.

3. Time to use the ace up the sleeve. This time it was a spectacular one that was the better of every other hand. The promise to cut the standard tax rate from 20% to 18% was brilliant. It stole the PDs clothes for tax-cutting but came at it the other way round, ie aimed at everybody, not just the middle classes.
There's small print. It's not a copper fastened guarantee (there's a get-out clause!). It will be very costly, maybe prohibitively so. FG might not buy it so bye bye new policy.

But still as a coup and as a way of moving the debate on from Rabbitte and Fianna Fail, it was masterful.

We're into conference season now. Cue eight weeks of the parties trying to out-bid each other with so-called "eye-catching initiatives" and all-singing, all-dancing, policies.

INSIDE POLITICS - Will Ahern be Taoiseach in ten years time.

Not that Ahern silly! We're talking about Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Foreign affairs. His knack for generating Dermo-friendly publicity is breath-taking. They launched a new ecology survey in the Blackrock suburb of Dundalk yesterday and who was on hand to launch it an star in the photo op only himself - granted he is a local (see the Irish Times story, and especially the pic of Dermo here).

I wonder what Dermot is looking at in the middle distance through his binoculars. A storm petrel? A cormorant? A ship? A future vacancy as FF leader?

INSIDE POLTICS - TRULY FRANK?

American pollster Frank Luntz did his second focus-group style exercise for RTE's Week in Politics last night. (follow the link to the show here)

Sure, RTE have thrown a lot of money at it. They brought in their top current affairs lighting cameraman Cecrid Culleton to shoot it in a cool, grainy style, with a constantly moving camera.

But there was way too much going on. Frank Luntz's own introductions and commentaries competed with those of Sean O'Rourke. Luntz tried to work through too many topics (from election-clinching issues to Fine Gael's poster to Brian Cowen's status as putative heir to Bertie Ahern). It gave too little time to give us a chance to really look at Luntz's techniques, or to evaluate them. In addition, the added layer of the three home-grown pundits gave us the unique television phenomenon of having what was already analysed analysed.

Let's fill in a little of the back story here. Political parties have been using focus groups for years as means of ascertaining and identifying the wants, the desires, the gaps, the problems, all the crosses that the long suffering public bear.

So political parties use them as a kind of weather vane. Well, some do, and others learn to rely on them more than their own human and political instincts.

If you read the separate books of two Observer journalists on Tony Blair's New Labour - Andrew Rawnsley's sympathetic 'Servant of the People' and Nick Cohen's scathing 'Pretty Straight Guys' you will get a fair idea how influential focus groups can be. Labour under Blair not only listened to them. Their policies were fashioned, led and tailored by what focus groups were telling them. Focus groups thus inspired policies. Conversely policies were culled because focus groups didn't like them. There's something perverse about a political party being led by the nose on policies. Giving the people want they want, as the legendary American TV news producer Frank Reuben said, is a dope peddler's argument.

And having watched last night's programme, you realised that it wasn't from the wind that Enda Kenny and Michael McDowell got their recent inspirations to big it up on immigration.

There were a couple of aspects to the whole shebang that I found unconvincing. The first is the assumption that political discourse in Ireland doesn't exist unless it's on televison. Terry Prone's otherwise excellent column in this morning's Irish Examiner reinforces this assumption that the election will be won or lost on TV. Of course, television is vital. But there is radio. There are newspapers (people will read and even be influenced by what Terry Prone writes, believe it or not!). And there is the internet, blogs, youtube, bebo etc. Granted, the internet is not the real deal yet as far as Irish electoral poltics are concerned. But it's already a party of the currency in the US - both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama launched their respective campaigns not on TV and not in the press but on their own web-sites. And it will be catching them bang-to-rights in 2012.

People cricially engage as well as emotionally engage. I do do take Terry Prone's point that TV and radio happen in real time, that there's no space for explaining fancy words or abstract concepts.

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 polticians. 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 essense 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.

Having said all that, it was still an absorbing exercise (as was the first). What Luntz has done is revealed the mysteries of the art to the public, using his own dial technology to make the preferences and prejudices of the groups measurable (and interesting).

Like a self-catalysing enzyme, Luntz himself becomes a player in the process. And with RTE throwing such resources and energy into the programme, it may itself have a measurable influence with the political parties and with voters.

But hold your horses! What Luntz is doing is interesting, eye-opening, important... but ultimately only indicative of trends, of perception, of issues.

As for the latter, there were a couple of bombshells. The first was that not one person in the groupll was a victim of crime (and most said they knew no friend or relatives who were victims). Yet, crime was identified as a huge issue. Why was this? Well, if you look back to the 2002 or 1997 or 1992 or 1989 or 1987 elections, what will you find? The self-same fears and concerns over crime, exactly the same ramping-up of near hysteria by the media (sadly, mostly newspapers) and by politicians. Of course, crime rates are rising and Ireland is a more violent society than it was in the halcyon days of the 1950s. But the perception of fear and or crisis has been cyncially manipulated and exaggerated by politicians and the media.

I must say I was very surprised at the sentiments expressed by some of the group on immigrants. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that people are instinctively conservative about new arrivals, have an innate suspicion of the unfamiliar. But it's not the job of politicians to pander to those fears or prey on them. And while Enda Kenny protests that he was being brave in his recent 'Celtic and Christian' comments, this suggests that he was being populist.

There was a very definite undercurrent from people that they are tired of the government, that they will begrudge giving FF and the PDs another five years in power. But there was an equal perception that the oppostion isn't up to all that much.

It was also surprising to see how little credit was given to the Government for the strong performance of the economy over the past ten years. I believe that when it comes to make-your-mind up time, people will think primarily about jobs, about future security, about which alternative will best guarantee the continuation of the good times. It's the economy stupid. It always is the economy stupid.

And just as an afterword on the changing nature of politics and of political campaigns, here is a video from the amazing slate.com showing how influential YouTube has become in shaping political opinion.

INSIDE POLITICS - LONELY HEARTS - BEWARE THE SMALL PRINT


my Examiner column, Saturday January 27


For Sale. Going cheap. Soul of a political party. High mileage but still running like new. A few dents and scrapes suffered along the way but no major structural damage. Comes with highly experienced driver. Good for another five years. No tyre-kickers.

With all the bickering and bartering of the past couple of weeks, a tiny little detail may have escaped your attention.


The election is still about four months away.


But already most of the parties are acting like the race is run, that they have slung their hooks.

Everybody has ruled out Sinn Fein.
Fine Gael has ruled out the PDs.
Fine Gael has obviously also ruled out Fianna Fail.
Fianna Fail has obviously also ruled out Fine Gael.
The PDs have ruled out Fine Gael.
Labour has ruled out the PDs.
The Greens have ruled out the PDs.
The PDs have ruled out the Greens.
The PDs have ruled out Labour.
Labour Party ruled out/not ruled out Fianna Fail (delete where applicable).
Sinn Fein says its TDs will be the “king-makers”.
So do the independents.


Many months before a single citizen has cast a single ballot paper, the musical chairs game is nearly over. We are left with only three or four spots still available to plonk political backsides on. They are: the current coalition with or without independents; the Mullingar Accord with the Greens; FF and Labour; or FF and the Greens.

All of that is based on the evidence delivered by the one great nostrum in between elections – opinion polls. One of the working definitions of nostrum is quack medicine. Okay an opinion poll is hardly as fake as snake oil or as big a charlatan as a psychic or astrologer. But it’s amazing how they are taken for granted, as they contain all the great truths.

All of this horseplay is all very well but it’s leading nowhere. It’s all based on a misconception that somehow the polls are going to pan out magically just as the opinion polls predict.

Lonely Hearts. SWM. Dynamic leader. Mid 50s. Recently split from partner. Looking for a long-term link up with view to political marriage. Will pass on photo if requested (have hundreds of billboard size portraits to spare). Genuine suitors only. No beards need apply.

Five years ago, the polls told us a couple of things that were right and a lot of things that were wrong. They told us that Fianna Fail would do well. But the party didn’t win the overall majority that was predicted. They also told us that the PDs would be obliterated; that Fine Gael would flatline or lose a little and the Greens and Sinn Fein would stay static.
To assess all five propositions. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Trawling through the cuttings from 2002, I came across the confident prediction of a very esteemed political pundit who said that FF would win 74, the Greens would win 3 seats, Sinn Fein would come back with only two, Labour would be as you were, and that hell would freeze over before FG fell below 40.
And when the real poll takes place and we realise just how off kilter the other polls were, we all say we have learned a lesson. And indeed we have. Until the next election comes five years later. And we proceed to make the same mistaken assumptions. And we learn the lesson all over again.

Missing. Since May 17 2002. 20 Dáil seats, formerly the property of Fine Gael. Anyone with any information on how they can be returned, please write in confidence to Enda Kenny, Leinster House, Dublin 2. Reward offered.

What we have had are lots of posters, billboards, hot air, furies, speculation and twaddle about coalition partners. Along with the usual scare tactics about rivals jumping into bed with the scary Shinners, the barmy Greens and the Labour pinkoes.
What we have not had are any really decent ideas. From any of them. Fine Gael’s major contributions on the Irish language, on Padraig Nally and on immigration have smacked of populism. In fact, one FF backroom person told me this week that his ‘Christian and Celtic’ reference was the classic use of the ‘dog whistle’ tactic – a message that is lost on most of the population but pricks up the ears of a key sector of the electorate who aren’t too enamoured of having too many foreigners here. In fairness, Fine Gael has hotly denied that it had any such intention.

Labour have unveiled two of its five commitments – commendable as they are, neither childcare nor community policing will be election-clinchers.

And Fianna Fail and the PDs? As John Lennon slagged off Paul McCartney for writing only one good song, Yesterday, the coalition have been living off the royalties of its one hit wonder – the low taxes it introduced in 1997. No new ideas since then. Nothing radical. Nothing.

Like Soviet leaders announcing to the comrades that the mines and collective farms had achieved record productions for the tenth year in a row, the Irish politburo hailed the triumph and prosperity that the country will enjoy over the next seven years.

There was something a little bit too controlled, a little bit too controlling, about the unveiling of the 2007-2013 National Development Plan (NDP).

It wasn’t so much the bit of flare and the bit of scare that comes with a mammoth E184 billion spending programme over seven years.

It was more to do with all the optics that surrounded the event in Dublin Castle. There was the huge fleet of shiny ministerial limousines lined up like an army guard of honour. There was all the slickness of the presentation, a big-spend PR endeavour. There was the promotional video where Bertie Ahern did a decent impression of Brezhnev at his most wooden as he read his answers from an autocue.

And then there was the blithe optimism. Growth rates will continue at four or four and a half per cent each year. We will build 60,000 social housing units; we will build 40,000 affordable homes. Our capitalist enemies will tell us that inflation will go out of control and that competitiveness will bottom. Reject their lies and propaganda comrades. Hail the glorious transformation.

Perhaps the key target date here wasn’t December 2013 but sometime in May or June in 2007. Are you implying that this is an electoral stunt? Don’t be so cynical! This has nothing to do with the election in, oh, four months time, or five at the most.
Despite all the pomp yesterday, the announcement of this NDP just didn’t carry in the imagination like the one announced in 2000; though this one envisages a whopping multiple of three in spending.

One of the downsides of being a much richer country is that nobody raises an eyebrow anymore when spending plans are announced. Sure the Government is occasionally guilty of pompous self-importance and serial bragging. But Transport 21, Towards 2016 (remember that: it’s social partnership silly) and now the NDP were all significant programmes by any measure. But in the media and public consciousness they soared like dead turkeys.

Still, politically, the Government is still thinking big. None of the initiatives announced were new – most are contained in previous initiatives like the ones mentioned in the last paragraph.

But the numbers are surprising. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) were called in to evaluate the project. The independent think-tank said, yes, the NDP was a good idea but recommended a total spend of E86 billion over seven years.

The Government went for broke and its proposed investment is a whopping E183.7 billion, though it includes a couple of big areas not covered by the ESRI evaluation. That said, the Government proposes to spend some E2 billion per annum than the figure recommended by the ESRI.

The Institute was concerned about the inflationary pressures that would be generated by such substantial increases in capital spending. It was also worried that it might lead to a further erosion in competitiveness.

The Minister for Finance Brian Cowen accepted that it would involve a major acceleration of capital investment, up from 4.7% of Gross National Product in 2006 to almost 6% in 2009 and that it is all predicated on a (relatively optimistic) growth rate of 4-4.5% each year.

But he argues that it’s necessary – this is the only window he says in which Ireland can address its infrastructure deficits.

He also contends that the construction industry will have the capacity to deliver the increased investment without causing an inflationary impact.

Admitting that that’s exactly what happened when the last NDP was delivered in 2000, Cowen promises it will be different this time. He points out that construction inflation had remained steady at less than 4% per annum. The Government and its agencies like the National Roads Authority and the Railway Procurement Agency now get full bang for their buck, he says, with most projects being delivered on budget and on time.

Acceding that the population of the Republic will have bypassed five million, there is a welcome tilting back to the National Spatial Strategy after the headrush that was Government decentralisation all but ignored it. Each of the regional gateways is mentioned by name. And the political imperative that development be regionalised and be balanced (and take place outside Dublin) is included in a stronger fashion than ever before.

As it is the six-year national plan after all, it includes the divvil and all, from broadband roll-out, to prison development, to schools, to courthouses, to childcare, to care for the elderly, to social and affordable housing, to all motorways being complete by 2010, to the new transport initiatives for the Dublin area.

Cowen uses a couple of key phrases to describe this 300-page documents (which by the way isn’t as specific as you would imagine – not by a long shot). “Coherence” is one of them. “Comprehensive Blueprint” is another. As are “infrastructure deficit”; “regional imbalance” and “value for money”.

Two phrases that are not used are “ambitious” and “highly aspirational. It will involve a huge spend, way more than recommended by the cautious ESRI. It is also based on consistent and high levels of growth, without interruption. It is also predicated on the absence of any increase in inflationary pressures or of any sudden jolts to the economy. The more you blow the bubble, the more you realise it is one that will never ever burst.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free NDP. And Richard Bruton of Fine Gael quickly reminded us it will cost E120,000 to every family or over E40,000 to every man, woman and child in the country.


Yes, Comrades. There will be another announcement later this year, when an evaluation will be released of the NDP that’s just finished. And when will that great occasion be? In June. And funnily enough, it will fall just after the elections.

But no matter. We have already seen the future and it works.

from the Irish Examiner

What more is needed to prove endemic, systematic and engrained collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces in the North?

Yesterday, Northern police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan published a report of her inquiry into the police investigation of Raymond McCord junior in November 1997. Ostensibly, it was that.

But what was uncovered was a larger, bleaker, truth that brought us to a place that is venal, visceral and truly truly awful. She found that police had colluded with loyalist terrorists who were responsible for at least 10 murders. This was in a tiny area of North Belfast over a limited period of years. When you extrapolate it to the entire island over a period of three decades, the implications are appalling, frightening. For once, when Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin speaks of ‘state terrorism’, you think that he’s not going too far.

The evidence at this stage is incontrovertible. This is only the latest in a series of reports from different quarters all pointing to the same overwhelming conclusion that collusion was rampant. Most notable have been the reports by Canadian judge Peter Cory into six murders North and South including that of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane; and Judge Henry Barron’s investigation into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and other appalling loyalist attack in the south.

And the ombudsman’s report into the McCord murder has everything. What are you looking for? Corruption? Perjury? Perverting the course of justice? Protecting a man involved in ten murders? Deliberately creating false documents? Conducting sham interviews? “Babysitting” favoured informants through difficult interrogations? Withholding evidence from police colleagues? Proving the DPP and Courts with misleading and inaccurate document? Allowing murder, racketeering, drug-dealing and sectarian attacks to continue unpunished. And for what? To protect “the most important intelligence asset in this UVF grouping”.

Unforgivably, this report is likely to meet the fate of Cory and of Barron – becoming part of a vast dust-gathering exercise carried out by the British government. Notwithsanding his promises yesterday that prosecutions will follow.
Northern secretary Peter Hain’s response to it would have been laughable if it wasn’t all so serious.

He started off by saying that “the police ombudsman has today shone a light on a dark and murky period in the history of Northern Ireland.”

Fair enough. But when it came to the crunch, there was the usual knee-buckling, the defence of the Realm stuff, the blank stonewalling of any notion of public accountability.

“I have heard calls for the setting up of a public inquiry to look into these terrible events,” he said.

“There is nothing at all to suggest that such an inquiry will uncover any new or additional evidence…”

Early on in its investigation, Ms O’Loan realised that the investigation into Raymond McCord’s murder would be intricate, wide-ranging, complex and time-consuming. On that basis, she made an official request for more resources from the Northern Secretary which was refused, though some £250,000 was made available at a later date. Did that suggest a culture of change? Or did the long delays in PSNI responses to specific questions from the ombudsman’s office (some replies took up to two and a half years).

There are some deeply unsettling questions that still need to be answered. Why, for example, did so many senior police officers refuse to cooperate – including two Assistant Commissioners and seven Detective Chief Superintendents? Why did Special Branch informants got away with multiple murders? Why will nobody ever be prosecuted for any of the litany of crimes exposed by the O’Loan inquiry, or for the cover-ups, or for the perjuries and cover-up.

Special Branch described Informant One, now known to be Mark Haddock, as its most important intelligence asset in the UVF in North Belfast. But other police officers, both uniformed and Criminal Investigations Department (CID), described Haddock as a “well-known terrorist and criminal” involved in racketeering, drug dealing and feuding.

The unmistakable tenor of the report is that the “worth” and “value” of Haddock as an informant could never conceivably outweigh the horrendous litany of crimes in which he was involved.

Like the enquiry into Garda corruption in Donegal, this major wide-ranging inquiry had a relatively humble beginning.

In May 2002, Raymond McCord senior was walking through the centre of Belfast when he decided to visit the police ombudsman’s office. McCord, a burly ex-bouncer from a loyalist area, was extraordinarily driven – he said that police had begun to portray him as a crank.

But his 22-year-old son, also Raymond McCord, was beaten to death in a disused quarry in 1997 on the orders of a UVF man and police informant, known as Informant 1. His son was no saint. Raymond junior was a UVF member who was facing charges for possession of a large batch of cannabis, probably controlled by Informant 1.
McCord senior alleged that police had been aware this was going to happen, had done nothing to prevent his son’s murder, and subsequently protected his killers from justice.

The findings of the investigation that stemmed from have wormed their way to the core of policing in Northern Ireland. There can be no pat excuses about a few “rogue” policemen, about a couple of “bad apples”. It was clear that this was institutional, engrained, and went a very long way up the hierarchy.

Some of the details benefit from retelling. In terms of evasiveness and dissembling, O’Loan finds that some serving police officers gave evidence that was “evasive, contradictory and on occasion farcical”.

That, she said, was either a significant failure to understand the law or contempt for law. On occasion, police officers said things that were proven to be “completely untrue”.

Or the shocking details of the killings. One of the ten people murdered by Informant 1’s gang was Sharon McKenna, a Catholic woman visiting a Protestant friend. Informant 1 (Haddock) admitted he had being involved.
When Informant 1 was hauled in for questioning, his two Special Branch handlers sat in and “babysat” him during the interrogation to ensure that he did not admit to murder.

Around that time, Special Branch actually increased his payment from £100 to £160 a week, despite the fact that he had fresh blood on his hands. In all, Informant 1 was paid nearly £80,000 by the police, despite the overwhelming evidence of very serious criminality.

Another epiphany of the extent of collusion was evident when two Catholic construction workers, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were murdered in North Belfast. They were eating their lunch in a car at Tiger’s Bay in North Belfast when a lone gunman opened fire on the car. Witnesses said that the gunman wore a “goatee” beard.
When Informant 1 was arrested, he was sporting a goatee beard. But he requested a razor blade and was supplied with one. The custody photography showed a clean-shaven man without a goatee. No identity parade was ever held.

It’s unbelievable stuff. Sure, the world of intelligence, of touts, of informants is shadowy, murky and full of moral contradictions. The second-in-command of the IRA’s punishment squad was left in place for many years, despite carrying out the most heinous crimes. A multiple killer like Informant 1 was allowed kill and commit serious crimes at will because he was judged to be a strong “intelligence asset”. Justice and truth become just relative values in the perverse mind-set that underlay all this.

The publication of this report in the week that Sinn Fein decides on policing will be problematic for its leadership, despite Martin McGuinness’s claim yesterday that it “bolsters our argument”.

It’s ironic that one of the strongest exposes of police collusion with loyalist terrorist has been uncovered by a man from an unashamedly loyalist background. Now he is advising Sinn Fein not to jump hastily into policing arrangements.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern describes it ll as “despicable past behaviour”. He will discuss the matter further with the British Government, he says. But he did just that with the Barron report and the report into the deaths of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson. He did that with all of Cory. And nothing came of those either. What more can be discussed? There should be no more skirting around. Bertie Ahern should be loudly demanding a proper public inquiry.