INSIDE POLITICS - THAT Trevor speech

We all have had a couple of days to reflect on Trevor Sargent's unforgettable speech to his Ard Fheis in Galway.

Sadly, tragically, it just doesn't get any better with the passage of time.

The script was passable, though with far too much name-checking of candidates.

The sentiments were fine, laudable even when he started talking about children at the end.

But the delivery. Jesus Mary and Joseph.

What could you compare it with? Mayo in last year's All Ireland? Ireland's dismal victory over San Marino? Worse if anything. Britney shaving her hair off? That bad.

Sargent bounded onto stage like a tele evangelist. With his arms aloft and booming voice it looked like he could maintain the illusion, perhaps even perform a miracle along the way.

But after that it was downhill for most of the way. There were bits of random roaring followed by bits of speed-whispering, like a racing commentator who has lost his voice. The effect was disconcerting and a little weird.

He rallied a little towards the end. But compared to his strong and even performance in Cork last year, this was not his finest half hour, his delivery being weak and ropey.

When I asked one of his colleagues later, he said that it was probably a mixture of nerves and too much adrenaline and an uncertainty over the timing.


The thing is, however, that it won't make much difference ultimately. Speech-making in Ireland doesn't have the power it has in the US or, arguably, in Britain.

Sure Pat Rabbitte had a great speech this year - it was rightly lauded. But in the normal course of events, a leader does very well if he or she gets through their half hour without fluffing their lines or gaffing or swallowing their glottises.

Bertie Ahern is a poor speaker. His leader's address can be purgatory to listen to. He sometimes sounds like a man who is slowly choking to death. And he is never helped by the script that isn't suited to his style of delivery.

Enda Kenny can be surprisingly good - Kenny's big problem is when he doesn't have a script, or hasn't been fully briefed, and needs to think on his feet.

Gerry Adams is good, though he has an annoying habit of sometimes being ultra patronising, sometimes being cloying sentimental.

Mary Harney never used an auto-cue; she learned her speeches de ghlan-mheabhair - like an actor remembering her lines. That added an edge to her speechifying, made them interesting, unpredictable. Michael McDowell - for all his panache as an orator - delivered a pedestrian first speech as leader this year.

Albert Reynolds was not great either, though his folksiness got him through those long half hours. John Bruton wasn't bad, except for the time Twink spoiled the national conference. Haughey wasn't the Mae West - his nasalised drone couldn't sustain a half hour or hour-long script.

For all his other abilities, Dick Spring was no Bill Clinton when it came to addressing the faithful. The alliterative cluster that comes to mind is dry, drone, dreary, dead.

Either was Michael Noonan whose sharp wit never came out in his leader's speeches, which always sounded creepy enough to come straight from the cemetery.

One veteran Fine Gael TD told me that Liam Cosgrave always sounded and looked like a man who had just swallowed a bottle of rat poison.

Before Haughey it's a bit vague for me. I remember seeing some archive footage of the late Michael O'Leary in the late 1960s or early 1970s; probably before he became Labour leader. He was in full flow and seemed angry, impressive.

Who's good? Clinton obviously. Obama is, definitely. I remember seeing Chris Patten - the Tory Party chairman - speak at one of their Brighton or Bournemouth conference. He was electrifying.

Just a small note on Leaders Questions today. Enda Kenny brought up the results of this survey that suggested that a high number of Irish teenagers have experimented with drugs, tobacco and alcohol (see the debate here).

Leaders Questions allows opposition leaders to ask a question without notice. That means that Bertie Ahern does not have a clue what he will be asked about.

But he has very diligent and very prescient civil servants who prepare for all eventualities. In front of him each day is a big ledger-like book indexed from A to Z. So if somebody is asking him about a relatively obscure subject like a survey on teenagers he just flicks to T for Teenager or D for drugs to find the relevant details.

The most impressive use of the A to Z was when Pat Rabbitte asked a question about a family with autistic children in a week in which they were nowhere near the news. The Bert had the family's case history at his fingertips. It was impressive but also very weird - almost as weird as Trevor Sargent's speech this week.

And just to remind you of Sargent's other great performance this year, here is his unmissable guest appearance on Podge and Rodge.

OUTSIDE POLITICS - Dunphy and decentskinmanship

There are a couple of things about modern Ireland that I just don't get. One of them is the Eamon Dunphy phenomenon. What has he done to deserve his reputation as the Doberman of the airwaves? Draw a couple of angry squiggles on a replay screen a decade or two ago? Describe Dick Spring as something nasty in the Sindo years and years ago? Lose the head on his Today FM radio show once or twice?

I listened to Dunphy interviewing Michael O'Leary this morning with a growing sense of incredulity (follow this link for the show). Okay, his new Saturday morning show is our version of Desert Island Discs or a remodelling of a similar programme Carrie Crowley (remember her?) did some years back. It's not intended to be a grilling or interrogation a la Richard Crowley, Cathal Mac Coille, or John Humphreys...

At the very least, it should be inquiring, probing and occasionally uncomfortable. However, in spite of his completely undeserved reputation as a contrarian, Dunphy's modus operandi is this: he cosies himself up to his interviewee to an embarrassing degree and presents himself as their best buddy; a kindred spirit; a fellow intellectual and traveller; who has slaved away every hour of his life to help that person achieve the better Ireland that both have been striving for.

The most telling example of that was when he interviewed Martin McGuinness on his ill-fated TV show a few years ago. He started asking a tough question of McGuinness but visibly lost confidence half way through and ended up reversing ferret and making a mildly congratulatory statement to which an embarrassed McGuinness (no stranger to barbed questions) could only agree. It was cringey.

It was the same with Michael O'Leary this morning. The interview was soft, marshmallow soft. The goo that passed for questions included a slap on the back for O'Leary for thinking outside the box (when he put in an order for Boeings immediately after 9-11). O'Leary's answer had a dose of the Jo Moore's about it (she was the British Labour party official who sent around a memo on 9-11 telling people to put out bad news stories). But there was no follow-up or supplementals. What O'Leary said was left hanging there unquestioned and unchallenged...

Other incisive questions included one about the findings of a recent survey that said a majority of people would like O'Leary to run the health service; as well as the following statement. "You love your country. You palpably love your country."

What has made successful Dunply programmes in the past have been the quality of guest and, whatever you think of O'Leary, he always delivers bang for his buck. Fine, we know Dunphy is an O'Leary fan. But you thought that O'Leary might have been bracing himself for a bit of turbulence this morning. Instead he got one of the smoothest flights of his life. Unjustifiably so.

It seems to me that for all his reputation (and the huge fees he commands) Dunphy has mellowed into a bland interviewer with little interesting or stimulating to say or to ask. He also bottles out of asking people hard questions. He has become the thing he railed against years ago, the fan with the typewriter (or microphone), one of the country's busiest purveyors of decentskinmanship (the wonderful phrase he himself coined when he was still very good).