Seamus Brennan

I have resumed blogging within the new Irish Times site and will be duplicating those blogs here. It's strange returning to instant journalism (churnalism as Nick Davies would have it) after an absence of several months. The first post marks a sad occasion - the passing of Seamus Brennan.

Here it is:

Seamus Brennan came up with one of the best summations for Bertie Ahern, when Ahern was Fianna Fail chief whip at a time the party was riven by splits and sulphorous enmities.

"As chief whip, Bertie Ahern learned to come down the white line and take both sides of the street with him. I don't know how he got away with it."

In many ways, it could serve as an epitaph for Brennan himself. He was universally popular with political friend and foe alike in Leinster House and that innate likeability served him well as a very effective chief whip and capable minister. He radiated calm too - even in the deepest of crises. There was no better politician to go in and fix a problem or appear in the media to becalm a storm.

But unlike Bertie - who was a man for all seasons - Brennan had a very distinct ideological core. He and Charlie McCreevy were seen as the two senior politicians within the party who were Fianna Fail by nature but PD by instinct. Besides his much-publicised decision from the 1980s to open up the aviation market, Brennnan had big privatisation plans when Minister for Transport for Dublin Bus, the airports, Iarnrod Eireann and Bus Eireann.

"We need to get a bit of jizz into the market," was his mantra, delivered in the flat Galway city accent that never deserted him despite living in Dublin for over half his life.

Jizz was the word I always associated with Brennan. Jizz just pinged off him, if you excuse the slang. His optimism and positive attitude were always present. He was crestfallen when he was moved from transport into Social and Family Affairs. But despite going from a Peedee style free-market department to an old-fashion Fianna Fail 'socialist' department, he quickly adapted to the changed circumstances.

Once he got over his initial disappointment, he couldn't ignore his own nature and took to what some considered an atypical Brennan portfolio with typical gusto. Journalists loved him because he could always provide an instantaneous announcement or yarn. He used to do a carousel of interviews with politcal journalists at Christmas. Each would come away with at least a dozen stories on initatives and new projects. Problem was that every other journalist had also got the same 'exclusive'. And more often than not the brilliant idea or scheme did not have the stayability to survive lits appearance under banner headlines in print.

METRO TO BE UP AND RUNNING BY 2009. 200

PRIVATE BUSES ON DUBLIN'S STREETS BY NEXT YEAR.

TRANSPORT M INISTER ANNOUNCES CREDIT CARD SIZE DRIVING LICENCE.

He was never cynical about it. Media savvy sure. But there was a bit of wish-fulfillment to it as well, even though he knew that only a fraction of it would become real.

I remember doing an interview with him when I worked in the Connacht Tribune where he said his political dream was to arrive back in Galwayin an open-topped car like John F Kennedy did as Taoiseach. He never achieved that ambition and knew from mid-career that it would not be.

The Kennedy reference was unsurprising. He was enamoured by US Politics. He travelled there in 1976 for the Presidential campaign and saw at first hand the slick marketing and, yes, jizz of the Jimmy Carter campaign. Then a youthful general secretary of Fianna Fail - and a loyal acolyte of Jack Lynch - Brennan imported many of those tricks to the Fianna Fail campaign in 1977 that saw the party score a landslide victory, unprecedetned before or since. He never lost his interest in the US political system.

He was a stayer too. He was one of the Gang of 22 who opposed Haughey but still became a minister under him. He might have started off as outside the inner circle but he had an uncanny ability to make himself indispensable. He did the same trick with Albert Reynolds. And with Bertie Ahern. During the autumn reshuffle of 2004, Brennan had to fight a mighty rearguard battle to retain his place in Cabinet. He did not conceal his disappointment at losing Transport then but soon bounced back. In the run-up to last year's elections, there was a lot of speculation that Brennan would go if FF were returned to power. But because of his past dealings with the Greens (as chief whip) he became part of the negotiating team and was instrumental in brokering the deal for the new coalition. It would have been seen as an act of political churlishness by Ahern if Brennan had been dropped. Even this year, when his health was deteriorating, he still displayed the same ambition and appetitite, though it was becoming more evident that this was a battle that he could not win.

Brian Cowen mentioned this morning that his colleague had come out to meet and greeet him at the Dundrum centre when he and Eamon Gilmore did a joint canvass during the Lisbon campaign. He was clearly ill but made little of it. I met him that day. He was characteristically upbeat and positive and, as s always asked me, a fellow Galwegian, how things were in Salthill and Glenard and Devon Park. As I write this my email inbox is clogged with tributes to him. A man who was able to go down the white line and take both sides of the street with him. He will be genuinely missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.

INSIDE POLITICS - FF'S CLAIMS TO PERMANENT GOVERNMENT

I remember having a chat with a friend of mine a good few years ago about the nature of Irish political parties. He also happened to be a fiery believer in the one true faith. His hackles would be raised very pronto indeed if you inferred that an Anorak was a less than immaculate garment.

“Sure, Fianna Fail and Bertie Ahern, they stand for nothing!” I said.

He pondered for a second before replying.

“That’s not true. They are the party of Government. That’s what they do. So they stand for everything.”

We need to re-order our phraseology. When the term ‘permanent government’ is used, it refers to the civil service. But in Ireland it could almost mean Fianna Fail. The party has been in government for all of 75 years now, save for a couple of interruptions. And failing some mid-term disaster, its latest run will have been for a full quarter century minus the two and a half years of the Rainbow.

How does FF and Bertie Ahern do it? What is the trick they use? Does the anorak turn itself inside out to reveal a magic multi-coloured dreamcoat? Not quite. But like racing pigeons, Fianna Fail has its own version of an inbuilt homing device that makes sure it reaches its rightful destination – Government Buildings, 1 Merrion Street, Dublin 2.

Over the past 15 years, it has swayed a bit to the left (to accommodate Labour), a little bit to the right (for the PDs) and a little bit to the left again when Ahern (ingeniously) copped on that Charlie McCreevy, in the eyes of the Irish electorate, was beginning to look more Boyzone than Westlife.

So he was ditched. A long way out – as far back as its think-in in Sligo in September 2005 – Fianna Fail decided that what would win the election was what every other government or prospective government use to win elections – the economy.

And it was the economy that ultimately won it the election, with a dollop of the ‘caring and sharing’ strategy that came post-McCreevy. It out-trumped the referendum on health. It out-trumped the media’s exposure of Ahern’s credibility gaps. It out-trumped the so-called crime crisis. It out-trumped all the quality of life issues that had parents hold parties for their kids at 6.30 in the morning before getting ensnared in traffic, congestion and 24-7 hassle.

It’s been pointed out before but where FF won most spectacularly was where all those problems were supposedly at their worst, in Dublin and in the constituencies that necklace the capital. Fianna Fail supporters now include a new genus, or class of human being. In the Thatcherite eighties, it was called Sierra Man... the working class man who was able to afford a Ford Sierra thanks to Thatcherism.

Our version here is called Breakfast Roll Man, as Ivan Yates neatly coined it - the guy with his own house in the suburbs (mostly far-flung) who has done alright from Celtic Tiger Ireland, but works very hard for it (hence the early morning breakfast roll) and worries that it may all disappear.

Last weekend, Bertie Ahern pointed out that he was now the father of the European Council. There was a teensy-weensy bit of self-preening there, a subtle reminder that he outlasted Schroeder; Berlusconi; Chirac and even Blair.

Looking at it from the outside, the most solid possible combination, numbers-wise, would be a link-up with the Greens, the two remaining PDs, with the two ex-FF independents thrown in. But that involves a few problems that may prove to be insuperable. Going in with the Greens would mean forfeiting at least one more ministry on top of the one given to Harney.

For me, there would be an attraction to the Greens being there – because sometimes you suspect FF’s policies in on the environment sound like nought but mouth (or should that be nil by mouth?). But then there’s an antipathy to the Greens that extends from its rural backbenchers to the two men at the helm, Ahern and Brian Cowen - both of whom have railed against the Green’s criticisms of FF’s relationship with the construction industry.

For them, to echo Ciaran Cuffe, treating with the Greens would be a deal with a devil. However, there are a few others – notably Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey – who would be more enthusiastic about a coalescing.

What FF really want is a long-lasting government that is tribunal-proofed. But that’s where the real problem lies. Sure Ahern has seen off Tribunal accusations twice – emphatically both times. But you can’t get away from it – there’s a discrepancy between his last statement and the Tribunal’s opening statement this week. He says Celia Larkin lodged 30 grand sterling. The bank branch’s own records show only £1,900 sterling came in that day.

That’s a major problem. And in the normal course of events, you would expect the PDs to raise it. But there’s nothing normal about the situation the PDS find themselves in. The party’s quandary is can you afford a moral conscience when the name of the game is survival? This will also pose difficulties for the Greens, should they be asked to the party. Will they look for assurances, or be content to await Ahern’s evidence to the Tribunal?

Sure, Ahern has had two whopping wins on this issue. But Haughey saw off his detractors in spectacular fashion before limping out tamely in the end. If it drags on, there’s a chance that Ahern’s legs will begin to go and he will find that he – like all the others – is obsolescent. Remember it’s a party of permanent government not of permanent leadership.

A version of this appeared in this mornings Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - FF MANIFESTO LAUNCH

Fianna Fail's manifesto launch was extraordinary. The party has tended to go for the big rally type event to launch its big policy papers - Dublin Castle for the National Development Plan and Mansion House yesterday for the launch of the manifesto.

The party hoped that what's amounted to a flip-flop on stamp duty would draw a line under the latest gloop Bertie Ahern has found himself in with regard to personal finances.

And for about 20 minutes, it looked very much that way.

But we hadn't accounted for Vincent Browne. Once he rose to his feet, grabbed the microphone and said 'my first question is' you knew that it was going to be something spectacular. Nobody else in Irish journalism has that depth of strength; the energy; the experience and nous, and the - I don't know how to put this any other way - brass balls or cajones to have done what he did today.

He was well briefed and was clearly intent on staying with the issue from beginning to end. His last question (and he knew it) wasn't a good one, as it delved into family law matters arising from Ahern's separation from his former wife. But the rest were brilliant - specific and forensic to give the Taoiseach little wriggle room for venturing cross country in his answers.

The argy-bargy between them was amazing -reminiscent of the showdowns between Browne and Charlie Haughey in the 1980s. And when PJ Mara tried to intervene and put a stop to Browne in full flow, Browne reminded Mara that 20 years ago he had tried to obstruct journalists from asking questions about the personal finances of Charlie Haughey. That was a checkmate if ever there was one.

The exchange lasted for about 15 minutes and electrified a campaign that had been patchy and moribund. In fact, after stonewalling all week, when Ahern was forced to answer the questions he gave a relatively good account of himself. Of course, with the Taoiseach, there were loads of loose threads to the answers.

Sure it overshadowed the manifesto launch. But in a strange way by finally speaking out the Taoiseach may have turned a corner. Unless of course, there's some other runaway train coming down the tracks this weekend.