John Deasy. A conundrum. A scrambled egg. A maze. A jumble. An enigma.
Earlier this month we saw him being stubborn bad when he challenged Enda Kenny and rained (there's a less polite verb that could go here) all over Fine Gael's New Year campaign.
And before all that, we saw him being stubborn very very bad when he lit up the famour fag in the Dáil bar, costing him his front bench position, and rendering as a still-birth his glorious future ministerial career.
But yesterday we saw him being stubborn very very good indeed. He followed up Carl O'Brien's scoop in the Irish Times (and we're still very sore about that today) with a superlative performance on Morning Ireland this morning.
Perhaps it's his schooling in the tough brutish and partisan world of Capitol Hill poltics. But Deasy railroaded his way through all the guff this morning and cut for the chase. With a complete rejection of the HSE's wan excuse that it doesn't comment on individual cases, he asked the direct, pertinent questions that needed to be asked.
Why was this young girl not put in care? Why did did this vulnerable girl die? Did the HSE did all it could have done to prevent this awful tragedy?
It was commendable. Like an extreme athlete, the Waterford politician doesn't seem to engage publicly unless he's putting his neck on the block.

My political column from the Examiner, January 6th 2007

ENDA KENNY started 2007 like a man who had thrown off all the shackles of last autumn and winter. “This year will be different,” he seemed to say. All those reverses in opinion polls will be overcome. I will also forget the haymes I made of taking on Bertie over his Manchester payments.

Onwards and upwards! And what better way than taking a good old swipe at an even more unpopular figure in Irish politics, Michael McDowell?

The first two days of January were great for Kenny. Fine Gael’s new “attack” poster campaign got great coverage, as did Kenny’s planned series of nationwide rallies to rally the troops and up his profile. On yer bike, Enda, go out and win it.

But like all new year’s resolutions, the feel-good glow lasted all of 24 hours.

This time the guy who put the broom handle in the spokes was John Deasy. The party’s toddler, Damien English, also gave Kenny a kick as he tumbled to the ground — but young Damien can’t be blamed because he didn’t have a clue about what he was doing when he agreeing to have his comments quoted publicly. The effect of it all was that Fine Gael and Kenny got totally flattened.

In an “Enda Kenny, My Part in his Downfall” moment, the latest mini-crisis had its beginnings in my interview with the Fine Gael leader in the Irish Examiner.
I asked him at the end of the interview would he continue as leader should he narrowly fail to win the election?

It was a throwaway question, the kind that’s been often asked before.
Kenny’s reply was general and unspecific.
“To go to the cusp and not achieve, it would be sore, very sore,” he said.

And then he added: “I am an optimist and we are in here to win it.”

Nothing too dramatic. But significantly, he sidestepped the question about stepping down — or at least he didn’t baldly state that this was his one and only shot at the prize.

And this is what seems to have got up John Deasy’s gander the next day when he threw down the gauntlet during his interview on local Waterford station, WLR, .
Deasy is the antithesis of spin. He is more than unspun. He is unspinnable, completely so. When asked a direct question, he will give a direct answer. More than that, it’s likely to be blunt. He tends to go against the grain of a carefully choreographed party line. He is honest of opinion, forthright and outspoken. He can also be stubborn, contrary and one-sided.

And when this question came up, Deasy said the leadership issue was always decided by the parliamentary party after a general election (fair enough). But he went further than that, saying that Enda Kenny should step down after the next election. Deasy also let it be known that he’d put himself up as a candidate if necessary (on the off chance that nobody else challenged Kenny).

Yes, Deasy can argue that he just restated party policy. But there was a sting in the tail, a bit of subliminal stuff going on. The message I took from what he said was that Kenny has one shot at the leadership. And a strong strain of pessimism about Fine Gael’s chances in the next election.

I have no problem with what Deasy said. None at all. Why shouldn’t we have some dissenting voices within our parties? It would be good to see a little of it within Fianna Fáil, where the Politburo controlled by Comrades Ahern and Cowen brooks no dissent whatsoever. All FF backbenchers ever seem to do is to mutter privately. Fat lot of good that does. And all we get is the party line, as stale and limp as old lettuce.

Where I do have a problem is the timing of Deasy’s intervention. There’s uncertainty in all parties about how they will fare this summer. Fine Gael is no exception.
A year ago, it would have been tolerable for Deasy to ventilate his view on the leadership (though it still would have drawn criticism). Immediately after the election, ditto (and would have happened anyway, if FG lost).

Strategically, now is not the time to plant any seeds of doubt, either inside or outside the party. What you can’t do is send out messages three or four months before an election that the party under Enda Kenny is a beaten docket.

Deasy may say that’s not what he was saying. That’s very true. But that’s the scent FG’s most vulpine opponents (FF and the PDs) are picking up. And knowing them, they are now sensing blood and wounded quarries and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Damian Enlgish, the fast-talking TD for Meath East, told RTE
www.rte.ie/news/morningireland.html
this morning that he's skiing in Andorra. Any snow? asked Cathal Mac Coille. No, said Damian. Just the artificial stuff.
Unexepectedly, and unpleasantly, Damian found wading around knee-deep in some other nasty stuff today. But this was entirely of his own making and Damo, who should have known better, walked right into it.

Sure English is the youngest TD in the Dail. But anyone who knows him will also know that there are no flies on him, that he will be more than able to see off any rivals in his own Meath patch. He would have dispatched Mairead McGuinness, had she interloped in his territory. He will dispatch Graham Geraghty too, and far more subtly that that Aussie Rules bully. But he will dispatch him all the same.

Now Damian can give out about being misquoted in the Indo this morning. But the fact is that he restated exactly what John Deasy said earlier this week: Enda Kenny's leadership would be challenged if Fine Gael did not get into government.
This all stemmed from an interview that Kenny did with the Examiner.
I asked him about his leadership should FG narrowly lose. He gave an answer that was really a demurral. Deasy was asked about the interview on local radio in Waterford and basicaly cited party policy.

But of course there are undertones. Citing party policy is all very well but it also infers conditionality of support. What both Deasy and English raised was the prospect of a FG loss. Does a public airing of the leadership issue before a General Election, undermine confidence and lead to an erosion of public support? Possibly, probably, say FG strategists.

What Deasy and English have said, the will argue, is naive at best, bordering on disloayal at worst.

It didn't help the party one little bit that the person who went on Morning Ireland to defend the party was Shane McEntee, its TD for Meath East. Cathal Mac Coille rightly cut him short the second time he came out with the ludicrous cliche that he was a Meath men and Meath men always think about winning.

John Deasy is certainly a chip of the old block. His father Austin put down at least one motion of no confidence in a Fine Gael leader. His comments today that Enda Kenny will face a leadership challenge if he loses the election - even narrowly - will infuriate the backroom people in FG. They have spent four years trying to build up Enda as credible Taoiseach material and feel that that could now be scuppered by an enemy within. What's surprising is that they were a bolt out of the blue, were apropos nothing at all. In his Examiner interview this week, Kenny demurred when asked would he continue to lead the party if it suffered a narrow loss. Maybe it came out of that.

Deasy is an individualist, sometimes stubbornly so, and does not hold back on venting his forthright views. Thus, the rebel and maverick tags he has acquired. His warning that Kenny will only have one shot at the prize has more or less done for any ambitions Deasy may have under a Kenny readership. He told RTE tonight that he would offer himself as a candidate. But realistically, Deasy knows that he couldn't hope to command much support. The most likely leading candidate is Simon Coveney, who will be moulded into the Fine Gael version of David Cameron, should the party lose a third term of office in a row.