INSIDE POLITICS - GREAT REFEREEING MOMENTS

AT THE last World Cup, Portugal and the Netherlands met at the knock-out stages of the competition.


I can’t remember which team advanced but one other detail of the game I can clearly recall. It was the most memorable refereeing performances of all time.

Valentin Ivanov was the unfortunate man who officiated at the game (and hasn’t taken charge at this level since). He made a decision that he wasn’t going to take any indiscipline from any side and that he was going to lay down the law from the start.




What transpired was a refereeing disaster of tsunami proportions. Ivanov administered a yellow card early on for a particularly bruising tackle. His mistake was this: the concept of discretion did not exist for the rest of the game. He applied the law rigidly, adhered to the standard that he had applied from the get-go. What we witnessed was an unravelling.

The game gradually descended into an unspeakable farce, a yellow and red card fest that just did not relent. By the time the game ended, 16 yellow cards and four reds had been shown. The four red cards were the most in a single World Cup game ever. In the last couple of minutes, players, pushed to beyond frustration by the referee, began making impetuous tackles and fouls.

And what was clear was this: the referee who had set out to show he was in control in such a strong fashion was clearly not in control. Any authority he had striven to assert had been shorn off him by the time the game began ticking into injury time.

I was reminded of all that watching John O’Donoghue endure his first day as Ceann Comhairle last Tuesday. One of the features of the last Dáil was the frequent clashes between his predecessor Rory O’Hanlon and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, mostly over Rabbitte’s remote understanding of what constituted two minutes of speaking time. Very often Leader’s Questions would go 15 or 20 minutes over the time allotted to it. To be sure, one of the biggest miscreants when it came to time-keeping was the chief anorak himself on the Government benches but the Ceann Comhairle was never in the habit of telling the emperor about the state of his undress.

You could see where O’Donoghue was coming from. He wanted to impose himself like a strong referee from the get-go, hand out a yellow card for the first heavy tackle, and by imposing his authority early, the House would quickly come to heel.

His mistake was that he picked the wrong target. Enda Kenny was never the worst offender when it came to time-keeping — you could have counted on one hand the times that he and the chair had clashed over time-keeping.

And, despite the good-humoured and youthful smile that Kenny maintained throughout their exchanges, there is a bit of the old dog for the hard road about him (he is the father of the House after all — having been elected 32 years ago).

As O’Donoghue slapped him on the wrist for going over time, Kenny began gently goading him. You could almost see him light the match and quietly place it up to the very short fuse, put his fingers into his ear, and wait for the deafening explosion to go off.

He started off by telling O’Donoghue to be quiet. O’Donoghue was out of his chair quicker than dung off a shovel, and his complexion (always fleshy) began to deepen to scarlet with the heat being generated with his tongue.

The more he lambasted Kenny, the more Kenny and his troops began doing what the picadors in a bullfight too — sticking the spears into the flesh of the Bull O’Donoghue.

Before we get carried away with the ‘bull’ analogy, it’s time to return to football and to great refereeing moments of our time. Once he had brandished the first yellow card, there was no return. Within minutes, he was flashing them constantly and it was inevitable that the red card would have to be produced.

The problem was there was no saving face. If he backed down, he lost. If he persevered and ploughed on, he also lost. It was incredible. Arthur Morgan and Michael Ring joined the fray. The stuff with Ring was like a pantomime. You are leaving the chamber! Oh no, I’m not. Yes, you are leaving? No I am not.

Over the past four years since I first sat on the bird’s nest above the chamber, there have been some disruptive scenes. But it was the first time that the Ceann Comhairle provided the start, beginning and end of them.

To be sure, Fianna Fáil are going into government for a third time. But with the opposition benches packed to the rafters — and with a Ceann Comhairle as colourful as O’Donoghue — I think we will witness interesting times!

This is my column from today's Irish Examiner. (I am on leave for the next few weeks so blog entries will be sporadic!)

INSIDE POLITICS - THE BULL AND HIS CHINA SHOP

WE all wondered what we would do without the comic talents of Joe Higgins.

But on the first real day of the Dáil returning, a ready-made joker emerged from the pack.

This might strike you as a bit strange but the very same deputy who was responsible for keeping order in the house was also single-handedly responsible for some of the most unruly scenes of disorder in the house for many years.

It was Kerry TD John O’Donoghue’s debut as Ceann Comhairle and he gave a textbook example of “a turn-up for the books”.

The problem wasn’t that the new Ceann Comhairle’s ability to keep easily excitable deputies under control. It was more deputies not being able to keep an easily excitable Ceann Comhairle under control.

The man who is known as “The Bull” had finally found his china shop. By the time the rampage had come to an end a debate that should have taken half an hour had dragged on for almost three, two TDs had been chucked out of the house and anyone who dared to wave the red flag to him was trampled over with a verbal onslaught.

O’Donoghue has many extraordinary qualities but one of them isn’t a long fuse.

Perhaps he came into the chamber yesterday with the intention of laying down the law but it was hard to figure what law we were witnessing. Sure, John O’Donoghue was wearing the Cathaoirleach’s robes but at times you were unsure if you were in the Dáil or in the Wild West and whether he was the sheriff or the chief outlaw.

Within three minutes of the start, his hackles had been raised. The mild-mannered Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny had gone over his three minutes and O’Donoghue was in no mood to play extra time.

After a couple of exchanges, Kenny made the mistake of saying: “Quiet now, you are new in the job”.

The Ceann Comhairle was out of his chair like a greyhound out of traps.

“You will not say ‘quiet’ to me sir,” he roared at Kenny.

“The deputy will be seated when the chairman is standing,” became the recurring theme of the afternoon.

Kenny’s good humour gave way to jibes. “The perception in Kerry is that you have no power down there,” he said. The taunts came thick and fast from the opposition benches. Zero tolerance, they shouted, reminding the Ceann Comhairle of a previous incarnation.

Strangely Pat Rabbitte, who clashed frequently with the previous ceann comhairle, was as good as gold yesterday, and (uncharacteristically) waved no red flags at the Bull.

For at this stage, O’Donoghue was distracted by all the other miscreants. The first to get the red card was Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan, who was told to sit down by the Ceann Comhairle when he got up to speak, but refused.

He was kicked out but refused to go, and stubbornly stayed on for 20 minutes before sheepishly making his exit.

And then — surprise, surprise — it was Fine Gael’s Michael Ring. He made the mistake of accusing O’Donoghue of “making it up as you go along”.

A mini-volcano erupted from the summit of the Ceann Comhairle’s chair.

“That’s a disgraceful statement and completely untrue,” roared the Ceann Comhairle.

You will leave the house, he told Ring. I won’t leave the house, replied Ring. There followed a pantomime exhange along the lines of 'oh yes you will leave' and 'oh no I will not leave'.

The upshot was that house was suspended twice as the mulish Ring refused to leave. The long and short of it was that he later left under a protest loud enough for his supporters in Belmullet to hear.

The delay was so severe that the debate on the new Stamp Duty Bill for first- time buyers was allotted all of 35 minutes, making it one of the shortest debates on a new piece of legislation in recent history.

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

INSIDE POLITICS - THE NEW GOVERNMETN

It's going to be an amazing day. A new Dail. A new Government. The protocol and procedures. Ciaran Cuffe's interview on Morning Ireland this morning with his admission that there will be constant tension set the tone. We will have interesting times ahead. The Greens will have to perform strongly as Ministers though to make up for the Green shortfall in a programme for government that is indistinguishable (almost) from the FF manifesto.

Last night's overwhelming yea to Government by the Greens last night was equally amazing. It was highly emotional; a coming-of-age for a political party. The 87% backing for the leadership was extraordinary.

And Trevor Sargent's decision to resign showed a rare display of honour amongst the band of thieves that is the political class and the hacks that write and talk about them. That he was not only stepping down but also forfeiting a ministerial seat spoke volumes about the moral strength of the man. He didn't have to do it. He could have been persuaded to change his mind. Sure, he would have shipped some flak. But he would have survived them, as Bertie Ahern has.

So now for an exciting day. A new Ceann Comhairle. A trip to the Park. The ushering in by Bertie of the selected 15 to tell them they are members of the new Cabinet. The dramatic unveiling of the new Ministers, to the Dail and at Aras an Uachtarain where they will receive their seals of office.

Who will the new ministers be in the 30th Dail. Well, will John O'Donoghue move on? And allow Brian Lenihan in? Who will be the Green Party TDs in Government. John Gormley? Certainly. And the other? Eamon Ryan or Ciaran Cuffe? It's hard to say. Who will get the Justice portfolio? Will Lenihan (of whom they say Ahern isn't very fond) get promoted straight into justice? Will it be Dermot Ahern or even Willie O'Dea?

For now it's all second-guessery. Having second-guessed Ahern so badly in the past, I'm not going to plump for anybody.

Here's the piece I wrote for this morning's Irish Examiner, which I finished a couple of hours before the event.

After ten straight days of sultry sunshine, the skies finally broke over Dublin. And when the rain arrived in Dublin, it sheeted down from heavens for hour and hours, unrelentingly.

It was a timely reminder that for all the talk of heat and global warming Ireland still means rain, and lots of it.

And when the joint programme for government was finally produced yesterday, that was a timely remind that for all the talk of green tides and new dispensations, Ireland still means Fianna Fail, and lots of it.

Yesterday was always going to be the pivotal day for the Greens. There is no party as ideological in Ireland these days; no party as truly democratic. And to get into government the ‘realos’ (or realists) of its political leadership would have to sell the document to its membership, a sizeable minority of whom remain ‘fundies’ (or fundamentalists) – those who remain immovable on core issues like incineration or motorways or the war in Iraq.

And what’s more, not only did the leadership have to get a majority, it had to get a stonking two thirds majority – and that would be a hard ask for even the more conventional parties if they were embarking on a major change of direction.

As one member of the senior leadership described how the day would pan out: “We are a horribly open and democratic party. People will say their piece. We don’t know who is going to show up. We don’t know what proportion of members will back our opinion. We have a huge job of persuasion to do.”

And the huge job was not made any easier by the bad start the Greens had to the day. Somebody (presumably from the Fianna Fail side) leaked details of the joint programme for government to the media. And some party members began to choke on their muesli when they read that the party had ceded on Shannon; on the M3 Motorway at Tara; and on hospital co-location.

And soon after the doubters were ventilating their concerns, based on a newspaper report that wasn’t entirely accurate or complete. Former TD Roger Garland described it as a betrayal. Former MEP Patricia McKenna was expressing serious reservations about Shannon. The majority of those who were vox popped on radio seemed to be members of the party’s awkward squad, opposed to the programme on various grounds, ranging from Shannon to antipathy to Fianna Fail.

It took the morning for the pro-government forces to get off the back foot and rally back. For a couple of hours, the negatives were in circulation with a virtual monkish silence on the positives. The party began a round of intensive briefings with the media, pushing the fact that they had got a 3% reduction on emissions, a carbon levy, some concessions on extraordinary rendition, E350 million per annum for education plus (in defiance of expectations) two senior ministries and two junior ministries.

But on a cursory look, the draft programme had a kind of familiar look to it. Where had we seen that before? we all asked. Well, yes indeed, it was the Fianna Fail manifesto in the main, with some Green initiatives attached. But they were not as significant, as far-reaching, as potentially sea-changing as you might have expected.

If that was all the Greens had achieved late on Tuesday night, how slim had their gains been when they abandoned ship last Friday?

Transport 21 - and all its motorways - remains intact. All the co-location clinics will go ahead (the Greens could never really have hoped to budge FF on that one). No halt to current incineration projects either. There is not a syllable about the US military passing through Shannon – a surefire sign that FF weren’t going to budge on that either.

Sure, there was a line on extraordinary rendition but was it strong enough to ensure the regular inspection of plane traffic through Shannon.

Senior insiders said that it meant, that from Ireland’s perspective, the circus that arose in Iraq will not be repeated.

But one candidly admitted. “We tried for the strongest possible wordking but didn’t achieve in getting it. We will try to not allow the circumstances of 2002 and 2003 to re-occur. We have received a stronger wording on extraordinary rendition.”

The Green strategy to sell the document was three-fold. The first ingredient used by all its leading members yesterday was a refreshing and disarming honesty. They all agreed that they were disappointed with some aspects, that they didn’t achieve everything they wanted.

Dan Boyle was the person who fielded most of the questions from delegates at the Mansion House in central Dublin yesterday. This quote from him was emblematic of that approach.

“It is not a great document. It may not even be a good document but it does contain good elements and those elements come from us.”

Yes, predominantly Fianna Fail, but the Green Party leadership went in for a sustained hard sell on those ‘good elements’, stressing the influence its presence would bring to bear on government policy.

They stressed in particular that the Greens had won two senior ministries and two junior ministries and that those ministries would be in the areas – environment, energy, and transport – where the heart of the Green philosophy lay. If you had a minister in charge of that area, they argued, you were already half way there.

They also made the point – and you couldn’t argue with this – that the party has six deputies compared to FF’s 78. On top of that, the bigger party didn’t ultimately need them. Moreover, they argued, the thrust of the party’s direction over the past five years was to be in Government, to implement green policies before it was too late.

Sure, Fianna Fail wasn’t its first-choice bed-fellow. And in another instance of that honesty, of his public wrestling of conscience, Trevor Sargent made good on his promise and offered himself as a sacrificial lamb, saying the future of the country was more important that his own. We will not know for sure if he will make good on his offer to resign, or if his party will persuade him to stay on.

Two thirds was a big ask for the Greens. And they based all the negotiations on policy, insisting that if they could win enough tangible Green policies, then the membership could be persuaded.

Paradoxically, it might be mood rather than hard-nosed calculation on ‘have we go enough?’ that will swing it.

I spoke to a fair few delegates going into the meeting. Some were opposed. But others, while disappointed with some aspects, spoke of a mood for change, a sense that it was time, or of excitement that the Greens could enter government and transform the country, much as the country changed after Mary Robinson’s victory in 1990.

Two thirds was a big ask. But it was also a big question. And you sensed that finally the Greens were finally ready to answer it with a decisive ‘yes’.