Promise versus Experience in the wake of Texas and Ohio

The Hillary Clinton campaign's dive bombing of Obama's campaign in the past week shows up some of the unavoidable pitfalls of politics.

And after months where people said that Clinton's negative campaigning would backfire on it, it's now clear that her furious shaking of the apple tree has finally forced some fruit to fall.


Candidates have three major commodities to offer to the electorate - personality; their record; and their potential. Obama's record (three years as a Senator)isn't exactly replete.

So he has traded on his charisma and his potential, encapsulated in his message for change. The problem is that a lot of this is aspirational and non-tangible - the 'vision thing'.

Tony Blair did a lot of it. So did Clinton. It was never Bertie's strongest suit (Once nested into government during a boom, FF could easily sit on its record - it won't be so easy next time out as economic fortunes go south). But if you parse any of the Ard Fheis/National Conference speeches from any parties here in the South, you still get oodles of this prose.

An example thrown out from the top of my head:

"I believe in an Ireland of equality, an Ireland of prosperity, and Ireland where people can walk safely on the streets without worrying about being mugged or stabbed. I believe in a strong economy, where there is respect for the individual while we still cater for the needs of society as a while."

It's rhetoric. Pretty vacant and empty. And to a certain extent Obama has been getting away with spewing out this stuff - that sounds incredibly impressive but contains precious little. It's like candy floss - it looks substantial and enticing but turns out to be the next thing to having nothing at all.

Dan Sullivan, in his comment on the last post, was talking about Sinn Fein's constant references to 'equality', one of those catch-all words that sound great but ultimately mean little, unless you are prepared to do the slog-work and define exactly what you mean.

I think if you compare US politics with that of Britain and Ireland, the Americans tend to value the aspirational higher than we do, which is why Obama's rhetoric may eventually outflank Clinton's experience.

Here, experience and record have been the driving factors behind Fianna Fail's facile victories in 2002 and (in the circumstances) facile victory in 2007. Of course, it was easier, as times were good. The 'experience' over the next five years will be undoubtedly rockier. Which will mean that the alternatives will have a real shot at it, irrespective of who the new FF leader will be. But FG and Labour will not get away with vague rhetoric and half-promises - besides showing that they have the 'grist' for the challenge, they will have to spell out all their policies, to almost wonkish detail. And that kind of rigour can only be good. S

OUTSIDE POLITICS - Methadone and Shooting Up

I have a huge difficulty with pharmacists using poor and vulnerable people like recovering drug addicts in their dispute with the HSE over the claw-back scheme.

The number of former heroin addicts affected is between 3,000 to 5,000. Now there are valid debates about the efficacy of methadone as a replacement therapy - it creates its own dependency. As I write, I am listening to a vox pop on RTE Radio 1's 'News at One'.

One guy has been using it for 11 years. Be that as it may, they are used to getting their dose at a particular time and a few spoke about being 'sick' when they have to wait longer. Instead of getting their prescriptions in their local pharmacies, methadone users have to go to 11 methadone dispensing centres.

Whatever the drawbacks of methadone, it's better than heroin, and with the State (rather than criminals) administering the scheme, many of the massive negatives (which include fatalities; assaults; homicides; overdoses; shoplifting; street prostitution; infection and burglary) are avoided.

This was borne home to me this morning as I cycled into work. There's a laneway that connects the entrance of Dublin Castle to South Great Georges Street in Dublin. Three heroin addicts, who also looked like they were homeless, were openly shooting up. There were two older guys. One of them was preparing the syringe. The second was tying a belt or tourniquet around the upper arm of the third person. These two guys were older. What was shocking was the third addict. He was a child, a boy who looked like he was 12 or 13 and was certainly no older than 14 or 15.

Jesus, that literally stopped me in my tracks. I brought the bike to a halt and watched the whole sorry ceremony unfold. I wanted to tell the two older guys; look you are helping a child shoot up there. Do you know that you're making him into a goner? But the kid had clearly shot up before and I guessed (but it was also partly motivated by being too scared to intervene)that nothing I would say would make the slightest whit of difference.

I have seen junkies shoot up before; and in front of babies and young toddlers. But seeing a child so young shooting up just shocked me to the core.

Politically, Aengus O Snodaigh of Sinn Fein was the only to react strongly to this development today. At a very sparsely attended media event on the plinth of Leinster House (i.e. myself and nobody else) he said: "This is a life and death issue. It's the poorest in society who are the most affected by this."

Which it is. And none are more vulnerable than children who are poor and who are on the margins.

INSIDE POLITICS - OPPOSITION STRATEGY

At the end of every term, I do a simple exercise, totting up the topics that have been chosen by opposition leaders for the twice-weekly set piece Leaders' Questions.

Over the last couple of years, the predictable issues have dominated - health, crime, and the Government's secret weapon of dealing with Limerick's gang culture: unleashing Willie O'Dea in the city's drinking establishment on weekend nights.

The dynamic has changed this time. There are now only two leaders entitled to speak during Leaders Questions and one of them, Eamon Gilmore, is new. With the smaller parties and indepedendents having been hoovered up by Government or gobbled up by the electorate, there is no longer a technical group. There is no Joe Higgins. The Greens have forsaken tofu abstinence for meat indulgence. And Sinn Fein - this was meant to be another breakthrough election; it instead became a breakdown election. Down from five to four. No Mary Lou. Pearse Doherty in the Senate rather than in the Dáil.

So where once there were five, now there are two. It's very early days and I don't think that any of the opposition parties have got their heads around what strategies they will adopt to down the Government over the next five years.

With Labour's Gilmore, there has been a difference of style and nuance rather than substance so far - he is less confrontational; appealing more to reason and to common sense than Rabbitte was. For Enda Kenny and Fine Gael, it's been more of the same, leaving off where they left off before the election.

Fine Gael's big strategy last time was that the election would be won or lost on three big issues - health, crime and value for money. The party was wrong on all three issues. The election was won and lost on the economy.

So can we expect more PPARS, more attacks on health, more 'we are tougher than Terminator' on getting the criminal gang scum off the streets.

Well on the crime front, yes. Listening to Enda Kenny and Charlie Flanagan yesterday, it was deja vu all over again. Kenny repeated a phrase three times: "Who's in charge Taoiseach, the Government or the gangs?"

That had tabloid written all over it. But when Charlie Flanagan started talking about bringing the army onto the street as back-up, that really took the pip. Brian Lenihan should have dismissed it out of hand. Instead, foolishly, the Justice Minister actually said he would refer it to the Garda Commissioner. I mean, if you follow that line of argument, the next thing is that we will impose martial law on the street and people will begin to consider the sense of Eoghan Harris's baublings about armed gardai shooting it out with criminals and the return of capital punishment.

INSIDE POLITICS - THE LONG GOODBYE

Sometime late last night – or even today in a summit that was tediously snailing its way to either success or failure– two of the Europe’s longest-standing leaders interrupted their colleagues to make a joint statement in the wrapping-it-up part.

Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair told the other 25 prime ministers that the neverending bush fire that had been Northern Ireland’s political situation had been quenched, doused, and finally brought under control.

This peace unlike all the previous ceasefires and agreements was permanent, forever. With the earlier attempts, violent or trouble invariably returned like a raging fire jumping across a road or a track or a fire-break.

Okay, they didn’t phrase it like that. European Council summits tend to be sticklers for formality. But the net point was this. Following the ceremonies at Stormont and Westminster, this was the final, really final, occasion in which both leaders could do another lap of honour – point to the one great and historical legacy of their close decade-long political partnership.

Next Friday on June 29th Tony Blair resigns after the longest long goodbye in political history. Over the last year, and particularly in the last few months, we have seen him do all the valedictory stuff, his farewell tour– the visit to Iraq, the gradual ceding of power to Gordon Brown, the emotional goodbye in his Sedgefield constituency, the extraordinary day in Stormont (and peace in the North will probably be Blair’s greatest legacy).

But almost un-noticed (in fact not noticed at all) another political career has reached its high water mark and is now beginning to slowly ebb. For the moment that Bertie Ahern grasped a third election in a row, was the moment when he started letting go. To be sure, the anorak braved ferocious elements in its time. But its surprising sturdiness at withstanding everything thrown at it cannot disguise its obsolescence.

Anyone who tracked Blair’s career will know of his near obsession with legacy – his sometimes barmy ideas to ensure that he would be remembered by posterity. Iraq is Iraq. No more needs to be said about that shameful escapade. On the other end of the scale is Northern Ireland, an unqualified success story. In between there are failures (the Millennium Dome), successes (the London Olympics in 2012), as well as a mixed bag of half-completed or half-abandoned ‘reforms’.

And in anointing Brian Cowen as the chosen one last week, Ahern was finally acknowledging his own mortality. His legacy will be a little less tangible. It could have been the National Stadium but that fell asunder. Historically, it will be the North. And generally, it will find expression in the simple language he himself used at a Fianna Fail Ard Fheis a couple of years ago of wanting a “better Ireland”.

Materially at least – and the thumping FF consolidation in the last election was proof of this – that he has achieved. There was a time when TDs from all political parties drove Opel Vectras or VW Passats. Now most drive gleaming big Mercs and BMWs. And like their politicians, the swathe of Irish people that matter (ie those who are not too poor to vote) have all traded-up their lifestyles in ten years.

In the past week, there have been more theories about why Bertie named Cowen as anorak-elect than there are about the whereabouts of Lord Lucan. The problem with a man who made confusion into an art form is that even when he makes a straight statement people read convolution and confusion into it.

Some have pointed out that Cowen and Ahern are not the close friends as the Taoiseach paints it (that’s true). They also say that Cowen doesn’t need Ahern’s imprimatur (that’s true). Some people have suggested that it will give Cowen no help at all, that by naming him that Ahern has performed some unspeakable Machiavellian act. And its net effect is that ht has actually undermined him. (that’s very not true).

But a surprising number of people have said that to me this week as if it were Gospel. To them, I’ve replied: ‘I hear what you are saying’ which is a great euphemism for bunkum and piffle.

For once, let’s assume Ahern was telling it straight. Cowen is his natural successor. Maybe Ahern was also giving public confirmation in a roundabout way that he will not last until he’s 60 (that’s a political eon away in September 2011). Perhaps too he was giving Cowen fair warning that he needs to start to step up his preparations to take on the challenge – or more importantly to take on the challengers, including Micheal Martin, Dermot Ahern, Mary Hanafin and Noel Dempsey.

Ahern has an ability to see around corners. He saw off Sinn Fein in the election (actually somebody described Michael McDowell as the jihadist of the campaign – in destroying Sinn Fein’s chances he also completely destroyed his own). He had the foresight to bring in the Greens, not just for numbers but as a means of winning the 2012 election.

And maybe too he is looking at the future and seeing a long-standing Fianna Fail tradition which was wholly absent during his reign making an unwelcome return. And that’s the Fianna Fail of splits and personality clashes, leadership heaves and bad blood.

And maybe he’s saying that the only way of removing that element of uncertainty is by making sure that a strong Putin-like leader replaces him.

This column appeared in today's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - FIVE MORE YEARS

If RTE's exit poll this morning is accurate, then Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail have pulled off a Houdini-esque act of political escapology. And our predictions will have been rendered null & void.

In the first week of the campaign, I was chatting to Brian Cowen and he reminded me of the comeback by Offaly hurlers in 1994, when they scored 2-4 on the last four minutes to shock Limerick.

If the figures are accurate (and they were within a point in 2002) it means FF will be in the driving seat. However, the party had a massive seat bounce in 2002 and picked up a lot of transfers - principally because of a divided and fragmented opposition. This time round FG and Labour will do better in enticing transfers.

A vote of 26% for FG will be good but Labour will be deeply deeply disappointed with figures that show it standing still, or even going backwards.

As in 2002, the opinion polls seem to have overstated GP and SF vote. Primary reason for this is that both parties attract a strong vote from younger people and - despite good intentions and campaigns like Rock the Vote - the percentage of this cohort that votes is low. Also SF attracts a stronger vote in blue-collar areas - again the percentage is lower than in middle class and rural areas.

Five More Years! Incredible.

For those who didn't hear RTE, here are the figures:

FF: 41.6% (-)
FG: 26.3% (+4)
Lab: 9.9% (-1)
SF 7.3% (+.8)
GP 4.8% (+1)
PD 2.6% (-1.4)

INSIDE POLITICS - MORATORIUM

Parties did little today. Only two official press briefings. All the politicians returned to their own constituencies.

Red C and the Sunday Business Post published an eve of election poll, which was sampled on Monday and Tuesday. It's up on the Red C website.

Shows that FF have risen since their poll on Sunday (but aren't as high here as they were in the TNS mrbi poll). Labour and Fine Gael - and the PDs - will all take some positives from it. It's where many commentators and observers sense the parties are at. On this basis, the outcome will go down to the wire...

There are two intriguing findings. One shows that people, when asked, now think the FF-PD combination is a marginally better one; reversing the situation on May 13.

More interesting is the finding that shows that the uppage in Fianna Fail's support coincided almost exactly with the fall in the number of undecideds. It seems that most of those who were undecided have decided in the past week (Westminster? The TV debate? Continuity? Doubt abut the wherewithal of the others?) to throw in their lot with the Bertie Bunch.

The Greens might also be worried by a little dip. Equally the PDs will take a crumb of comfort that they have crept up by a point.

John Gormley issued a statement last night saying that the last seat in Dublin South East was going to be a fight between him and Michael McDowell. Last minute shivers down the spine or is this constituency going to surprise us again.

I've got it in the neck all week for predicting that FF won't take a seat on The Week in Politics last Sunday. Maybe I concentrated too much on the failure of both the FF candidates to win council seats. I met Eoin Ryan in the Leinster House car park and he tackled me over it - saying that you can't argue against 1.2 quotes.

"There's always a FF seat in Dublin South East"

A mature recollection moment for me? Possibly. Sure, we are all fallible!

Here is the State of parties: (compared to last Sunday)

Fianna Fail 38 (+2)
Fine Gael 26 (-1_
Labour 11 (-)
Sinn Fein 9 (-1)
Greens 6 (-2)
PD 3 (+1)
Others 7 (+1)

INSIDE POLITICS - GREEN PARTY DECLINE?

A noticeable trend in the Irish Times poll this morning was upward shifts and slideage of support for the non Big 2 parties. Labour is on a roll at the moment and has displaced both Sinn Fein and the Greens as the 'coming party'. Its three point jump to 13 is consistent with findings in our own poll and the Sunday Business Post on Sunday. After months of green tide talk, the Greens look like they may be on the ebb. Five per cent suggests a loss of traction to Labour in the key Dublin constituencies. At that level of support, there are no guarantees it can retain all its seat.

And that will make a lot of people who predicted they would win big a little bit silly.

In our own supplement I predicted the following state of the parties:

FF 67; FG 47; Lab 22; GP 11; SF 8; PD 4; Others 7.

Of course, it would be churlish for me to pledge my life on it. These things are merely punt. And when you tot up all the individual constituency predictions done by the media in the run-up to elections, you see how horribly wrong we turn out to be.

In any instance, I will have to revisit my predictions this weekend, and perhaps revise the Greens down, SF up a little, and Labour up a little. But then, I'll probably have to do the same next weekend. Fortunes wax and wane furiously in the heat of battle.

At least I'm in relatively good company. Watch this classic piece of RTE footage from the 1981 election where Vincent Browne (dig the lamb chops!) admits he was completely wrong with his predictions. Follow this link!

INSIDE POLITICS - LATEST POLL

The Irish Times/Tns mrbi poll results tonight will give the three main parties a little to boast about and a lot to chew on.

The results are: FF 36 (+2); FG 28 (-3); Lab 13 (+3); SF 10 (-); GP 5 (-1); PDs 2 (-1); other 6 (-).

(Read more on its Breaking News site)

FF will be happy that it's got a little bounce. It will help galvanise the troops, get the likes of Cowen to thump the hurley onto the dressing room table, telling them that they're still in the hunt.

But 36% is low. Worse ever low. FF tend to go down as well in the election campaign but they've rarely started off a campaign as uncomfortably low as they are now.

The two worst performances were under Albert Reynolds in 1992, and under Bertie Ahern in 1997. In fact Bertie's first election as leader was pass remarkable - what hid over the sclerosis was slick vote management. Last time around FF attracted transfers from everywhere - it's not going to happen now.

FG has fallen three but it's still happy with 28. Even the party's most enthusiastic strategists (why does Frank Flannery come to mind?) were saying that looks a bit high. So it's not too put out by the fall, unless it's a sign of a trend (and the Sunday Business Post poll on Sunday will tell us that).

We've been talking about Sinn Fein and the Greens for two years now. But Labour is the story of the past month. The party is buoyant. Pat Rabbitte has had a good first ten days of the campaign. On 13% it will make gains at the expense of FF, and some of the targeted gains of FG and the Greens (who are not at 5% - showing some signs of decline in recent months).

Rabbitte and Kenny are at the highest level of satisfaction. FF got a mini bounce this time in sympathy for Bertie, but nothing like last October. SF look solid, and Gerry Adams satisfaction rating has jumped, a direct reflection, I would guess, of the feelgood factor around Stormont on Tuesday.

Shows how fluid, how volatile and how fickle it's all going to be. There's a fortnight left. There will be a lot of skelping!

INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE'S SUNDAY SWOOP

Like Enda Kenny I was caught on the hop by the pre-dawn swoop by Bertie Ahern yesterday morning. The FG leader was only in Mayo. Unfortunately for me I was in Lisbon without a computer.

You have to play with whatever hand you are dealt. And so I wrote the analysis piece below in a cafe in the Baixa using my mobile phone. It's not exactly a mobile. It's a Nokia 9300 smart phone. It's the size of mobile phones from circa 1999 and opens to reveal a very very small QWERTY keyboard. You can't touch type with it and it's hard going when you have chunky fingers like me... but in an emergency, it's great.


Sorry for being so boring about the technical details but one of the great things about blogger.com is that you can post your scribbling by email. So it;s great when you are in an area with internet connections as zippy as a tranquilised three-toed sloth.

And here's the piece I tapped out on it in great haste (verging on panic) yesterday. Apologies for unspotted typos!

Ireland woke up yesterday morning to discover that the tactics of the pre-dawn police raid had been transferred to the world of Irish politics.

 

As the citizens rubbed sleep from their eyes, they opened their curtains to see a changed landscape. Like a fresh fall of snow, almost every lamp-post in the country has now been comandeered and festooned with somebody's beaming portrait.

 

And talk of a surprise move by Bertie Ahern. Five years ago - without warning - he arrived into an almost empty Dáil chamber late at night during an adjournment debate to dissolve the Dáil.

 

This time round the chicanery was even more convoluted. For months he has strung people along about the actual date of the election. He was adamant that the election would not be held on a Friday. But besides the Taoiseach dropping a couple of hints about the Dáil returning for at least a week after Easter, there was no real certainty about the date. Most zeroed in on May 24 but with caveats and qualifications. For when Bertie Ahern is playing a tight game he tends to use a stapler to make sure his cards are close to his chest.

 

The big surprise wasn't May 24 but the dawn raid on Áras an Uachtaráin. In hindsight it makes perfect sense of course. The only piece of legislation that was essential from a credibility perspective was the Criminal Justice Bill, which passed all stages in the Dáil on Tuesday.

 

From that moment the clock was ticking. The minimum time allowed for a campaign is three weeks. And so when it wasn't called on Thursday, we knew that Thursday May 17th was a goner.

 

One of the curious anomalies of the Irish electoral system is that strict rules and limits apply to spending during the election campaign. But before it's called, parties can spend any amount, infinite amounts is they have them.

 

That's why it seems that every billboard and poster site in the country has been given over to those messianic (and photoshopped) images of Bertie for the past month. That's why Fianna Fail favours minimum campaigns to allow it maximise its pre-campaign campaign spending, if you follow my drift.

 

Most commentators assumed it would be Tuesday or Wednesday of this week when Bertie would go to the country, to allow a bare three weeks. But in the event, there's now 25 days between the opening and closing of the race.

 

And why it makes sense is that the President was leaving for a trip abroad yesterday. While the Taoiseach could have signalled the dissolution of the Dáil to the Council of State in Mary McAleese's absence, that would have seemed shallow and mean-spirited for such a formal and serious duty.

 

But then, you would tend to think that Mr Ahern might have almost had a change of heart after seeing the poor showing for his party in the latest opinion poll on Friday. But there's a school of thought (and a persuasive one) within Fianna Fáil that believes that the party needed to go at the earliest possible moment. They argue that in 2007 the name of the game would be about cutting your losses. For them, even May 24 was too late - it should have been May 17or 18.

 

The notion of a strongly regrouped opposition has been trending since the local and European elections. After a swerve back to the Government last autumn, the momentum has seemed to swing back to the Mullingar Accord parties again.

 

The latest national poll suggests that Fine Gael is breathing down Fianna Fáil's neck but that scenario - huge FG gains; FF wipeout - isn't really borne out by the Red C constituency opinion polls conducted for Thomas Crosbie Holdings titles.

One opinion poll does not an election make. But the trends - and the unmistakable vibes being transmitted by the growing self-confidence of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte - all point to one of the great political clichés being flogged to death in the next few weeks ... yes, it's going to be too close to call.

 

Arguably, since Alan Duke's Tallaght Strategy of 1997, Irish politics has not been characterised by a clash of ideas; rather a clash of personalities, styles and credibility. When you compare economic policies, for example, the parties have all converged into the centre and agree the same fundamental principles (low taxes, both personal and corporate). Sure there are differences (stamp duty, auction politics etc) but they are nuanced - most are so subtle to be indistinguishable.

 

When it comes to crime, the three mainsstream parties are all slurping out of the same trough, out-toughing each other. The proof of that particular pudding is that both FG and Labour tacitly approved Michael McDowell's hardline criminal justice legislation by abstaining when the vote was called in the Dáil last Tuesday.

 

It's only in health where there's a bitter row over Mary Harney's plans to build private clinics on public land that we see real gap in terms of thinking and ideology.

 

Is all that sameness and uniformity healthy for democracy?

 

The choice that faces the electorate is akin to the choice between two banks or two mobile phone operators. In some of their policy choices, parties have been too influenced by focus groups, running scared of alienating the massive swathe of innately conservative and careful voters who occupy the middle ground. It's for that reason, I'd argue, that Sinn Féin and the Greens are doing so well. Each has an easily identifiable, clearly distinctive, message that brooks no ambiguity.

 

People forget that for all his undoubted charisma Bertie Ahern achieved only 39% of the vote in 1997. That was exactly the same as Albert Reynolds five years earlier. Why was Reynolds considered a disaster in 1992 and Ahen a triumph in 1997? Improved and ruthless vote management gave the party a huge seat bounce.

 

Will this be as bad as '92 or as disastrous as 1982 when Charles Haughey almost allowed FG become the largest party in the State for the first time?

 

It's fascinating to see that in spite of his travails and blunders during BertiGate, Mr Ahern is still his party's greatest asset. Mr Kenny will struggle even now to convince people that he has the mettle for Taoiseach whereas Mr Ahern can just point to his track record. Having said that. the FG leader has travelled a long way.

 

Of course, there'a a presidential flavour to all parliamentary elections these times. For FG, its biggest project has been to build Mr Kenny up. For all his mercurial abilities as a debater, there were doubts about Mr Rabbitte's populist appeal. But if he's not loved, he is respected, and that's backed up by the deference accorded to him on the streets.

Michael McDowell also personifies the PDs. In survey after survey people profess to despise or loathe him. But like Nicholas Sarkozy he sets out to be deliberately divisive or provocative because he knows that at the same time as he alienates some, he attracts others. But will it be enough to save his party from the meltdown that has been widely predicted?

 

For SF, it is Gerry Adams's face we will see though he's not a candidate and not as major a player in Southern politics as he likes to think. The Greens will be only party that will trade on its message rather than on Trevor Sargent's image. Both parties will do well, so well in fact that they will prevent a clear-cut overall result either way. The green message - be it republican or environmental - has huge potency with the Irish electorate right now.

 

If Fianna Fail win through, it will mean Bertie Ahern will be the longest leader in office since de Valera. Perhaps people have not yet tired of Bertie but have tired of his ministers. One of the imponderables (until polling day that is) is if the Government retains enough affection or if people have finally tired of this administration.

The picture will be complicated. We now face 25 days of claim, counterclaim, attack and counter-attack. What is certain is that on May 24 the people will speak. It's only then will we know if the status quo has prevailed or has fallen. Or, more likely. that we're entering into the limbo of a hung Dáil.

INSIDE POLITICS - Wexford

There were two parallel political discourses happening today. The first was the reaction to the appalling tragedy in Co Wexford with the appalling gaps revealed in the HSE and Garda reaction to the incident. In Leinster House today - nothwithstanding the upcoming election - there was little talk about anything else among those I met in the corridors and cafes. But in the chamber, it was kind of by-passed in favour of other things. It shouldn't have been.

The story is an achingly sad one. Visually impaired parents. The bizarre visit to the undertakers' office on Friday. The action and inactions of the weekend. The tragedy was compounded by what seems like serious errors of omissions by the HSE and the Gardai. It is true that even with every conceivable safety net in place, sometimes agencies just can't intervene when somebody is intent on doing something. But it is clear that there are very grave questions to be answered as to whether or not these four needless deaths could have been prevented.

The interview given on Morning Ireland by the local HSE healt manager was disastrously insensitive. Richard Downes, who handled the interview really well, gently chided her for seemingly answering all questions by reading from preprepared statements. (The interview is telling; listen to it here)

The HSE came across as uncaring, more interested in absolving itself from any blame. Given that a similar tragedy occurred (in not dissimilar circumstances) in the selfsame place two years ago, you would have expected that protocols were put in place for weekend cover.

But no, there was an excuse (which was really no more than guff) that an expert group was looking into this matter and is due to report next month (yes next month!), at which time systems and protocols will be examined and looked at etc. In other words, two years after another tragedy, we had hardly moved on, and not put in the proper systems to safeguard vulnerable families and children. And when will those new systems be in place? Years and years hence. Fat lot of good this will do to the Dunne family. Meanwhile, the HSE passed the buck on the gardai.

Ah, the guards. The Garda Siochana reaction was equally flabbergasting. Rather than dealing with the tragedy, they went on an elaborate ass-saving folly saying they were not going to be scapegoated (presumably by the HSE). No explanation for delays in contacting the HSE. No explanation as to how a squad car being driven around an estate (as opposed to making a physical call to the house) makes a whit of difference to anything.

The disgrace was that in the face of such an awful human tragedy the two state agencies with responsibility were more intent on indulging in a blame-shifting exercise. The two local priest who visited the family and made major efforts to help the Dunnes are the only individuals to emerge out of this mess with any credit.

But strangely, at the highest level, it had no real resonance. Sure it was discussed at Cabinet and an enquiry is being launched. But strangely, it didn't dominate Leaders Questions. Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte both chose to ask questions about Governance. Fair enough, but in the day that was in it, they seemed oddly unimportant, out of kilter. Only Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin of SF brought it up as his leader's question - and asked the relevant questions that have been asked all day.

INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE AHERN INTERVIEW

I interviewed Bertie Ahern last week and the piece appeared in the Irish Examiner on Easter Monday (full transcript of printed interview below). I have done hundreds of interviews during my career. And this is the first that I have ever done in Q and A format, rather than in the more conventional narrative style.

The Q and A style of interview was popularised by John Waters in his HotPress days (and he based it on interviews he used to read in the religious magazine, The Word). Vincent Browne was also partial to it, and also used it regularly during the time he was writing a weekly interview for the Irish Times.

In a way, you'd think it's an easier way of writing up interviews. All you do is transcribe the recording and Bob's your uncle! Not, not quite. A half an hour interview will produce about 4,000 words and unless you are writing for the New Yorker, it's not going to fit in. So it becomes an exercise in pruning.

Plus, it makes it harder to describe how a person reacts to a question. HotPress used to use (laughs) to convey laughter but it always read silly. A couple of times Bertie Ahern, while exceedingly pleasant throughout, commented in a hard-nosed and hard-chaw way to questions about political opponents. What I tried to do was describe all those kind of reactions, the timbre, the way he projected himself at the start.

For some reason, the Q and A format seemed very suited to this particular interview. He was more considered, more in-depth in answering questions than in previous interviews and he went to some lengthts to put context on some of his responses. By going for a straight narrative account, you would have lost a lot of the quotes to description and paraphrase. In a way, this interview is the edited highlights, rather than the match report from the next day.

THE INTERVIEW

Bertie Ahern, we are often told, does not obsess with his place in history, doesn’t have the need to leave vainglorious legacies like Tony Blair (reputedly) does.
But even before the nation decides his fate this summer, Ahern will have his place in modern Irish political history assured.
De Valera may have moulded the State; Lemass may have made it modern and outward looking but Ahern made it prosperous and also banished forever all inferiority complexes.
It’s too early, much too early, to judge how history and posterity will judge him. But arguably he now ranks second only to Dev in the FF pantheon.
But for all that, what is most disarming about him - and this goes a long way to explain his enduring appeal – is the sense of ordinariness he projects. His critics will claim that it’s a long time since he has had to use a petrol pump. And it is true that he himself is not shy when it comes to reminding people about the interests and achievements section of his C.V. Yet, when most people think of Bertie Ahern they think anorak.
As you are interviewing him, your are reminded a little of the GAA player or manager. When they are asked how they won crucial championship matches, it is never because they were a better team. No, it’s invariably because the media wrote them off.
It is ditto with Bertie Ahern who often points to his successes in terms of defying those who underestimate him, while also having a slight dig at the media and other detractors.
It’s clear too that there’s an election in the air because there’s a harder edge to his comments. In a wide-ranging interview he is much tougher than in previous Irish Examiner interviews, on the effects of Bertie-Gate, on opposition claims, on Fine Gael, on Enda Kenny. He also delivers a very strong castigaton of the Greens.
He also reveals that having ruled out a Friday, the election mightn’t take place on a Thursday and that it will take place at the end of May (after the 23rd) at the very earliest.
In that vein of ordinariness, he takes on the chin the national pastime of poking fun when he garbles sentences. And true to form, he creates a brand new Bertie-ism when saying he doesn’t mind Bertie-isms.
“I have a good sense of humour. I have been doing Pub Grub and all of those programmes…”
(Of course, he meant to refer to Today FM’s ‘Gift Grub’)

Irish Examiner: How can you deny after the Ard Fheis that Fianna Fáil is not getting involved in auction politics?

Bertie Ahern: Our tax and spending proposals are costed. They are fully deliverable in a strong economy.
What we put out in the Ard Fheis is well within the limits of what we have been spending on welfare and tax in the last number of years.

IE: What’s your response to the charge of 53 promises and E300 million a minute during your speech?

BA: Enda Kenny made 23 promises (in his speech), my guys tell me, and nobody mentioned that, only that he made one…
While others have sought to claim it’s auction politics, the charge does not hold up to scrutiny.
I watch what happened in the AF. There was a group of people who said beforehand: They (FF) have no ideas. They have no routine. They have no innovation. If I made the speech and didn’t put in the things, they would have said: ‘I told you so. No ideas. No fresh ideas. Too long in Government.
And then when I came out with a whole lot of new thinking they couldn’t take that.

IE: Some say you were panicked into making the speech. Did you plan to make those promises?

BA: My draft speech, I had back in early to mid February.
The stuff that was in it was taken from our draft manifesto and I took out a few and put in a few as we go along but most of the big ones didn’t change a line.

IE: Is the election going to be fought on the broad theme of Bill Clinton’s famous line, ‘it’s the economy stupid’?

BA: There are two things in it to be honest. There’s the economy and all the economy means… Then the second issue is local issues. The local issues totally differ. As I toddle around the country (I encounter them). They can be big or small. In Cork at the moment it’s the airport. In Galway it’s the water. All around the country, there’s a national issue and then local.

IE: Look at what happened to Tony Blair in his third election in Britain. Will FF struggle to maintain its seat and if you win, will you just about limp home?

BA: Every election is different. I have fought so many of them in my career. We did very well in the last election and we will be fighting hard to hold on in most constituencies and in a couple of other constituencies trying to increase our representation.
What you have to do is just get out there and put in the best work you can, the best policy formulation. Do you plans. Do your publicity. Do all the things we are rolling out.
I have to laugh at the position. Two weeks ago, they said FF have no posters, are not doing up any leaflets, and I met a TD today and he said you have a huge amount of posters up, you have the (FF newspaper) out, you have ads everywhere, do you not think it’s too soon?
I think it’s about work. It’s about what’s the policy agenda, fulfilling that, finishing out our period of work, right up to the end of April and into early May, we still have a huge amount of launches. And I’m going to keep on doing that, on climate change, getting our position out. Ticking off our boxes on what we promised to do.
We have a lot of legislation we won’t get through but that we’re going to get published because at least we want to get the work finished on it.
It will be harder because you are ten years in (power). Tony Blair, in fairness to him, would have walked the last election if it wasn’t for Iraq. The one issue, the international thing that went wrong for them, in so far as they thought they were going to get in and get out.

IE: And what has been your Iraq?

BA: Health is probably the one that comes up and repeats itself.
There are good stories in health. The one good thing about the row over the maternity hospital in Cork is that everybody now knows there’s a world-class hospital in Cork. In Tullamore, they are opening up a huge hospital.
There’s no balance in this (debate). This is all about let’s find the story, let’s find where the crash is, let’s talk about the reaction.

IE: But Enda Kenny said he’d make the election a referendum on health?

BA: Looking at health, we met most of targets on staff and on beds.
Look at the cardiac strategies. They are completed. In 1997, the only cardiac was in the Mater. There’s cardiac in Galway and Cork now. It’s not a issue. There’s no waiting list for (cardiac) stents.
The cancer strategy is very good. It’s nice if it was finished (but work continues). Maternity is very strong.
We are spending more per capita on the capital programme than any other country in the OECD except Norway.
(He continues with a defence of co-location): The length of time (projects have taken) when we have given them money. There were
areas that we gave money in 1999 and they have not finished yet.
It’s Too slow. I’m not a great lover of the private sector but it’s quicker.

IE: You were described before as the Teflon Taoiseach, as Fianna Fail’s best electoral asset. Has the loan controversy of last autumn changed that?


BA: When I went in 1997, the view was that it would be impossible to beat the three amigos as they marched around town together, that I would be a lightweight and that I wouldn’t be able to beat them.
There were three experienced guys, Spring Bruton and de Rossa.
There was the fact that I came up on the outside track with our logo: ‘People before Politics’. It surprised people.
Commentators generally felt (the Rainbow) would win that election after two and a half years.
I think we caught them out and built on that in 2002, we had a very good election.
Nobody can deny the success of this Government but there are people… you built up battles with various groups. That’s inevitable when you are government.

IE: But what about your reputation?

BA: I don’t think about it too much. I would meet more people in two or three days around the country than most people would meet in a year.
You would very quickly detect if they had totally gone off you or not. And they are not.
I addressed public meetings last Friday or Saturday to probably 3-4,000 people which was bigger than the FG Ard Fheis and it was only my usual toddle around the country for a Sunday afternoon.
I won no election on my own. I didn’t win 1997 or 2002 on my own.
I don’t detect any personal animosity to me at all and I think the events of last October don’t rate. They are more interested in how I’ll solve the nurse’s dispute or how I’ll get rid of the crime.

IE: You have a reputation as a master strategist? Was the so-called Inchdoney Conversion (where he embraced socialism) an example of that following the poor local and European election results.

BA: Inchdoney was important. But the switch wasn’t that fundamental. (in 1997), we had gone in with policies to enhance education, services, get more people working, stimulate the economy and growth, bring down corporaton and personal tax, give more incentive to work.
It all us to put more into social policy. We have done a good job in these areas. Let’s put more money into education; let’s put more billions in health.Let’s advance some of the social agenda. I believe we have done that. You could not do that in advance, you could not have done that before you cut income tax and corporation tax.
You would never have had the money.

IE: Speaking of strategy, what Thursday will the election be held?

BA: I never said a Thursday.

IE: You have not decided what day of the week?

BA: I probably have. It’s of no importance whatsoever. My point about the Friday was that with the cleaning of he register, now people are meant to be registered where they are living. That includes students as well. If they are living in Dublin, they should be registered in Dublin
There are tens of people every Friday, working a four and a half day week, who are gone on Friday at lunchtime and do you think they are going to stop for an election?
The fact was that in 2002, they didn’t, they were gone. That’s even more so five years on.

IE: Do you get tired of the media and comedians going too far by parodying you?

BA: No. No. I have a good sense of humour. I have been doing ‘Pub Grub’ (sic) and all of those programmes, breakfast time, all of these programmes have been going on for years and different radio programmes.

IE: Where do you think the election will be won and lost in terms of constituencies. And will Sinn Fein get a lift from the northern breakthrough and the Greens from growing concern over climate change?

BA: At the end of the day, the election is 43 by-elections.
Maybe Sinn Fein will get a lift. I hope we have. I have worked as hard on the North as I could. I gave it the lion’s share of my time and my commitment. You just have to. There are some people who look at the North as the key issue. What percentage of the electorate they are I’m not sure.
People have a general interest but what will swing their vote is a ceist eile.
The Greens are benefiting not from anything the Greens in Ireland are doing and I’m not saying any of this being disrespectful against the Greens. But all over the world the Greens are taking a huge jump except in Germany where the Greens were in power and they got rid of them and they went through the floor.
All of the places where they have never had power, they are doing well.
That’s because you can’t turn on the TV without seeing an ad or seeing somebody going on abut a carbon footprint or a water footprint.
It’s been that way now relentlessly now since last summer and really since the year before when you had all the floods and the mudslides and everything else.
Of course people are rightfully concerned about these issues. We were working away on our recycling programme and the huge things we did on recycling a year ago and nobody would talk about them.
Now, we say something and people say you should have done more.

IE: Are you saying that thee Greens will get a bounce like Labour did in 1992?

BA: Not that big. They are getting a bounce. The premier of Newfoundland was here recently. The Greens were 2% of the vote six months ago and now they are on 11%. This is happening worldwide.
There is no analysis of their policies. I have not read one article.
There’s no analysis of what the Greens in this country stand for on anything.
The Government’s policies will be analysed to death. I’d say they are getting away with that in a lot of countries.
They were down there today (during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil) sneering at our climate change policy. I was shown what they said three years ago. They hadn’t a good idea in the bloody document.
Then we put out a document. Our document isn’t made up. It’s what we have done, what we’re doing.
Ok, there’s no doubt about it (in relation to being 24% over the 1990 level of emissions). You say that’s not good enough. That’s fair comment. I have no problem with that.
These guys (the Green TDs) are down there just chipping way.
Do I believe that for a minute if these guys are in Government they would have an idea, you know what they would do, they would just take all of the ideas that FF come up with because most of the stuff we are doing in Government is stuff that FF scientists and guys have given us. We didn’t find this in the system I can tell you.

IE: You could end up being in Government with them? In any case, won’t it be far more complicated than in 2002?

BA: There could be any series of combinations. To answer your fair question, will the Greens do better, or will they be more significant, it’s obvious the answer is, yes.

INSIDE POLITICS - DUBLIN POLL

We are going to have more opinion polls than Spring showers between now and polling days. The latest one is this morning's from The Star (commissioned from Lansdowne, which conducts our Examiner polls).

The poll was confined to Dublin and had a sample of 500 people across the 12 constituencies (I'd reckon the margin of error is, therefore, in the order of plus or minus four).

Still, like all opinion polls (crude instrument, snapshot etc that they are) the findings are fascinating. Fianna Fail has taken a bit of a hit (down five points to 32 since the 2002 elections) and Fine Gael seems to have staged a bit of a comeback that could see its miserly return of three seats in Dublin rise (but not as much as the party hopes).

Of late, the story du jour has been the rise of the Greens (and you read it here first, a long long time ago). And it is no different here. Five points up. At a heady 13 points only one point behind Labour. That's going to reap a seats bonanza (suddenly Patricia McKenna and Tony McDermott are looking very very good; and you never know, David Healy might be looking like he could squeeze past Larry O'Toole in Dublin North East).

And Sinn Féin? Hard to say. The party will gain, but may only have one extra seat in Dublin when the votes are cast.

A warning though. The findings (bar the FF fall and the Greens gain) are all within the margin of error. And from a stats perspective, there has been little change since then...

INSIDE POLITICS - PIER INTO THE FUTURE

A pier is a disappointed bridge, James Joyce once wrote. We’ve seen a lot of disappointed bridges in the past 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement was hailed as having signed, sealed and delivered a future for the North.

Driving on the literary rut for another couple of seconds, we come to Cré na Cille, the majestic novel written by the great Connemara writer Máirtín Ó Cadhain. All of its main characters are dead and are buried in the local graveyard beside the sea. All have carried the petty jealousies, snobberies, prejudices, gossip and tittle-tattle of their lives to the grave, where the sniping continues ad infinitum.

Yesterday we crossed that kind of divide or Rubicon.


And as the results trickled in, we got the accompanying flood of negativity and bickering. Paisley’s bellicose remarks about republicanism, democracy and evil set the tone. Soon doubts were being expressed about the March 26 deadline. The media honed in on other problems. How could Sinn Fein say it was committed to policing and then parlay its way out of its own MP Michelle Gildernew’s comments? (She said she would refuse to contact the PSNI about suspicious dissident republican activity.)
Beyond that, there was the more universal brand of pessimism. The DUP and Sinn Fein had almost wholly emasculated the more moderate SDLP and the Ulster Unionists. Extremism had won out. Tribalism had triumphed. This wasn’t power-sharing. It was cantonisation. It was Balkanisation. Another false dawn.

All those disappointed bridges. The IRA ceasefire in 1994; the Good Friday Agreement; the Weston Park agreement in 2001; Hillsborough in November 2003; The IRA declaration that it was standing down in July 2005; decommissioning that winter: the St Andrews Agreement of last October; Assembly elections; and March 26.

To be sure it was sad to see the SDLP slip down to just 16 seats and have to face the reality of having only one ministry. It wasn't nice to see moderate unionism outflanked, outmanoeuvred and outplayed by the DUP.

I have likened Sinn Féin before to the cuckoo who laid its egg in the SDLP nest. Or as a senior SDLP figure put it this week, SF has stolen the SDLP’s clothes, ill-fitting as they are. And on the other side, the same can be said for the DUP’s stealthy moderation over the past five years.

But there’s another version of history that could be inferred from this week’s events. The DUP and SF were both given thumping mandates. And strangely enough, the mandates were very much pro-devolution, pro-powersharing.

This was clearly demonstrated by the routing of the splinter republican and loyalist parties. The former SF activists who opposed its decision on policing got salamandered at the polls. The handful of other DUP naysayers got trounced – including Paul Berry in Newry-South Armagh. The UK Unionist Party leader Robert McCartney saw his seat disappear and his party reduced to an empty husk.

One of the great paradoxes of this election was that the candidate who actually took Bob McCartney’s seat was Brian Wilson, winning the Green Party its first seat in the Assembly. That was a crucial breakthrough.

This was a small sign of hope, of a society keen to move on, to make a painful transition, to move from crisis to normality, from vetoism to democracy. It was shown too in the relatively stable showing of the SDLP (admittedly with slippage) and by the strong showing of the Alliance Party. They just scraped their six seats in 2003 but comfortably retained and consolidated this time around.

From parsing the results you got a sense that the main political parties are lagging behind their electorate, that they has not quite copped on to the sense of impatience there is for change. There were a couple of neat illustrations of that.

For one, there was the election of the first Assembly member from an ethnic background. Alliance MLA Anna Lo, who took a seat in South Belfast, was born in Hong Kong.

And then there was the eyebrow-raising (if slightly unscientific) text poll run by Stephen Nolan on his show on BBC radio. Some 83% of respondents wanted the principal parties to enter government, without further negotiation. That bears repeating. Without further negotiation.

Of course, the DUP being the DUP, they will do things at their own pace. And that may mean further negotiation, lots of it. At the same time, while the Reverend roared as of old, other figures of the party were making more mollifying sounds. Jeffrey Donaldson volunteered the observation on Morning Ireland yesterday that perhaps Michelle Gildernew had been ‘off message’ in her comments on dissident republicans. Nigel Dodds was also clarifying and softening his ‘not in my lifetime’ stance, saying it related solely to the appointment of a SF justice minister, not to sharing power with republicans.

Granted the DUP will not be rushing to sign their names to devolved government immediately. We are still standing on a pier. But we are so close to the other side that already it’s beginning to feel like a bridge.


This is my column from today's Irish Examiner

SINN FÉIN, AN SIN É?

This column needs to summon every political cliché to its side this week. A week is a long time in politics… we have never had it so good… events, dear boy, events… all political careers end in failure… and all credit to the lad, we're over the moon and sick as a parrot.

And boy do we need them. Two years ago, this column was confidently predicting big gains for Sinn Féin. A year ago, this column was confidently predicting big gains for Sinn Fein. A week ago, this column was confidently predicting big gains for the Greens.

And the obvious corollary? This column is no longer predicting big gains for Sinn Fein.

And now the tricky bit. Explaining it. The easy thing to do would be to borrow the legendary phrase of the Independent former political editor Chris Glennon: "I was right at the time".

But unfortunately easy explanations won't pad out the 500 words or so still left in this column.

You need to borrow another hackneyed phrase - this time from the fickle world of fashion - to explain the phenomenon in the equally fickle world of politics.

Just as cobalt blue (so I'm reliably informed) is this year's black, so the Greens are this year's Sinn Fein, when it comes to being the potential darling of the voters.

Trevor Sargent delivered easily his worst leaders' address at the Ard Fheis last weekend, yet the same political correspondents who gave him 'nul points' for that performance also quickly nominated him as a contender for the politician of the year award.

In the past 12 months, Sargent has brought his party from just north of nowhere to just south of everywhere. The momentum for that upward thrust has come from within and also from without.

The Greens have learned the lesson that to get anywhere, you need to take a bite of a reality sandwich. It has been lucky that its six TDs have high profile, have been identified with tangible issues (it's fatal politically to wholly dwell on the abstract and all its abstractions). The party leadership has also made sure that it doesn't have its hands tied too tightly when it comes to coalition government.

For example, at its Ard Fheis last year, the party didn't adopt Niall O Brolcháin's proposal to make the banning of US military planes from Shannon a precondition of government. And Sargent has been correct in steering the party independently into the election, not getting involved in any accords or alliance, in Mullingar, Mullinahone or in Mulligans, Poolbeg Street or wherever. And he has also been clearer that Pat Rabbitte when reporters put 'what if' hypotheses and suppostions to him.

Outside the Greens, there has been a marked shifting of the ground in the past year. Uncertainty over fuel supplies; a series of scary reports on climate change and global warming; Al Gore's hugely influential documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Yes there has been a dramatic change in the mood, in the zeitgeist. And the Greens will capture that zeitgeist despite the discovery by all the other parties of newfound green credentials.

And what about Sinn Fein. For the first two or three years after the 2002 election, the party seemed to be on an inexorable rise. It got 7% of the vote in the last election but by late 2004 its support had risen to a heady 12% or 13% in some opinion polls

This column has previously expressed its reservations about mid-term polls but it's the only slat tomhais we have. And there were elections too. Sinn Fein did very well in the European elections in 2004. Its southern star Mary Lou McDonald edged out the Greens' Patricia McKenna and Piaras Doherty in Donegal also achieved a massive showing.

The consensus - flouted in this column and elsewhere - was that they could double their seats.

What has changed? The Northern Bank raid and the McCartney murder had a huge corrective effect, as did the party's duplicity over the three eco tourists who were nabbed by Colombian authorities while looking for lesser spotted monkies in jungle that just happened to be in Farc-controlled territory.

Gerry Adams's box office appeal was such that in the south his poster drove the SF campaign down here in 2002, though he wasn't a candidate. He and the SF leadership have a lost a little of that mojo, that star quality since then.

Like Bertie, Adams remains a huge asset but like Bertie Ahern, his star has waned a little with longevity. What he has achieved - and will achieve in the next month- is momentous, and a huge credit to his vision and leadership. But it doesn't compel pencils down to SF on the ballot paper as quickly as it once did.

The five SF TDs in the Dail have been a disappointment overall, though, ironically, all have improved in the last year. They have also started to take constructive positions on issues - the domestic violence motion this week is a case in point - rather than eternally opposing every thing but having nothing to offer themselves.

There are lots of possible gains for SF. In Donegal. In North Dublin. In Wexford. But some of its own TDs are also vulnerable. They once talked about 10 SF TDs or more this year. Now it's closer to seven, maybe eight.

This is my Irish Examiner column from this morning

INSIDE POLITICS - SINN FÉIN ARD FHEIS

"THE higher they build their barriers, the stronger we become.”

Gerry Adam’s final words on a strange and — yes, that overused word — historic day.

And for Sinn Féin, there was never going to be a higher barrier than policing, and what will be its ultimate endorsement and backing of the PSNI and the rule of law in the North.

Or, in another sense, a greater act of humble pie.

Viewed from some quarters — and even within Sinn Féin itself — this was the greatest compromise of republicanism, bigger than

decommissioning, bigger than the standing down of the IRA, bigger than all the other concessions and sacrifices Sinn Féin and the IRA have made — and have been forced to make — in the past decade.

The taunts of ‘sell-out’ that came from the small group of Republican Sinn Féin supporters at the gates could not be fully erased, and still echoed faintly in the hall. And for the most part, all the justifications, all the arguments, were addressed to those and others like them outside the hall, not to the convinced and signed-up at the RDS.

It’s symptomatic of the complete command and hold that Adams has on republicanism that yesterday’s vote was portrayed as a victory, as a breakthrough, as putting one up on its enemies and detractors — the British government, unionism, the SDLP (which came in for dog’s abuse) and the Irish government (which fared hardly better).

Adams contributions book-ended the seven hours of debate. Not so much debate but almost a procession. From the moment the conference began at 10am, everybody knew it was already in the bag and that the motion would be overwhelmingly endorsed.

The day panned out into a day in which the party and its members could have their say. Yes, there were a couple of dissenting voices. But it seemed to me that most delegates wanted to put the imminent and inevitable decision that was going to be made later in the day into some context — into a personal context as some did, or as a means of repeating republican credos.

And inevitably it became an event where the debate seemed as symbolic as it was real. The symbolism was increased by the presence of republican icons like Martin Meehan, Rose Dugdale and the likes of James Monaghan and Niall Connolly of the Colombia Three.

This was not a fig leaf or window-dressing for any humiliating climb-down, they argued trenchantly. But the more they argued that line, the more they gave out about the SDLP and the governments and unionism, the more you kind of thought: compromise.

There’s no doubting the gravity of the decision and its bravery. There’s no doubting that this was historic. But there was also no doubting the compromise it involved.

In the end, it happened quickly. As 5.30pm approached, there was still a long queue of delegates waiting to speak. It looked like it could go on for several hours. But then somebody demanded that the vote take place now as many people had long distances to travel.

Within five minutes, the vote had been taken and it was all over. Of the 2,000 or more delegates, hardly 100 dissented.

“It was over 90%,” said Martin McGuinness afterwards.

“That is an achievement after several weeks and months of a very difficult and emotional debate.

“For the delegates to make such a brave and mature decision is very gratifying for us.”

Having said that, the argument employed by the leadership was quite convoluted and was not altogether convincing.

The question that it had to grapple with was what made signing up to policing so wrong in the past and what made it so right now.

Gerry Adams used a strange combination of words when explaining this in his speech.

“Sinn Féin stayed out of policing until now because that was the best way to bring about the necessary threshold,” he said.

He was suggesting a Malcolm Gladwell type “tipping point”. What supported that? Police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report on the Raymond McCord investigation; SF’s own claims that the Irish Government and the SDLP have failed to make policing accountable; the concessions SF won in relation to devolved policing and the removal of MI5 from civic policing.

“That’s where SF comes in,” he said. “We have to ensure that those dreadful events (collusion) never happen again.

“… We cannot leave policing to the unionist parties or the SDLP or the Irish government.”

McGuinness advanced the argument in more trenchant terms. In one of the only covert references to any sense of a climb-down for SF, he acknowledged the hurt it would cause.

But in equal measure, he laid out the quid pro quo that would follow, the payback for this compromise.

“I make it clear to Ian Paisley that the 28th of January 2007 is a big day for Sinn Féin but that Monday, the 29th January is an even bigger day for Ian Paisley,” he said to thunderous applause.

The SDLP have hardly been cheerleaders for policing but the SF leadership portrayed them as such, to try to argue (not altogether convincingly) that the SDLP capitulated on policing but not so SF.

“We have to boss policing. We are the bosses,” argued McGuinness.

“The PSNI is going to have to earn our trust. They are not going to get our trust tomorrow morning or after this vote.”

And a little later: “I want the police to watch MI5, to spy on MI5, to arrest MI5.”

And that faint echo came from the dissenters outside, about all this being a ‘sell-out’. McGuinness delivered the definitive line here:

“We come from an IRA tradition that fought the British army and the RUC to a standstill.

“We are being criticised by groups who have yet to fight them to a start.”

How many times in the past 13 years has it been categorically stated that the war is over? And how many times has it emerged that it was yet another false dawn?

Yesterday we did see a piece of history being made, with SF’s acceptance of policing and the PSNI.

With it came an acceptance that it was all over as far as the IRA was concerned. Bar the shouting, of course. And be assured, with Ian Paisley and the DUP involved, there will be plenty of that over the next few months.

from the Irish Examiner

The best moments of the week. Funnily enough the Bert didn't make it, besides his starring role in the propaganda film on the National Development plan.

I loved the quote Raymond McCord senior gave the Sunday Tribune's Suzanne Breen about his meeting with Mr Smoothie himself, Northern Secretary Peter Hain. Raymond McCord senior is build like a big concret block by the way - he used to be a bouncer.

What Raymond McCord snr said about Peter Hain: “He fell asleep at one meeting. That showed an utter lack of respect for my son. I should have chinned him. He’d be worth doing three months in jail for.

Talk about a quote with plenty of punch.

Highlight Number two came courtesy of Blogorrah.com, the new site with which the prince of the zeitgeist, John Ryan, is involved.

When I was labouring away at Magill, we used to do a questionnaire every month with a well-known personality.

By far and away the best answer of the year was the one given by the playwright and director Gerry Stembridge.
Q: What do you think of post-modernism?
A: I view it with an air or ironic detachment.

That kind of sums up this site, which is sometimes a bit silly, but so often hits the spots other sites fail to reach.


And this week they have discovered that Jerry Buttimer, the Fine Gael candidate in Cork South Central has a his own bebo site.

Jerry obviously hopes to recurit the yoof vote in his efforts to get ahead of running mates Simon Coveney and Deirdre Clune in what will be an, ahem, competitive (i.e. savage) election south of the Lee.

Strangely, along with Cold Play and Snow Patrol, Jerry lists the Wolfe Tones as one of his favourites. Come again? The Wolfe Tones? Going against the grain a week bit there, isn't he.

The other best quote of the week wasn't a new one. But Eamon McCann's description of the SDLP and Sinn Fein squabbling over policing in Derry was delicously apt.
"It was like watching two bald men fight over a comb," he said.

Examiner column January 13th

It started life as a once-off musical collaboration, an eclectic group of artists came together to record a legendary concept album.

In a marathon session in an isolated castle they laid down the tracks of a recording that would go down in history, The Long Good Friday: Eternity and a Day. It was an immediate and soaraway success for Northern Shower and was lapped up by millions of fans in Ireland, North and South in the coming months. But like a lot of new bands, the gigs and the touring and lifestyle eventually wore all the hope and optimism down.

Now a decade later, the Northern Shower has returned to try that difficult second album. As it happens, they hope to finish recording it by the end of March, just in time for Easter. And its working title? What else but The Long Good Friday II: From Here to Eternity.

Like the first, it is high risk though somehow in our bones we feel they can pull it off.

There have been some changes in the band’s line-up since then. Creative differences led to David Trimble walking out several years ago and he is now pursuing a solo career. The Clancy Brothers sound of the SDLP sounded a bit dated so they drafted in The Beards, former punk traditionalists who have been experimenting with a more mellow sound over the past few years.

And just to give it a bit of Northern soul fizzle, the producers went looking for the Reverend Righteous, a cult figure who has been doing the rounds of the Northern circuit for decades. His controversial all-action stage show has made him into one of those figures who you either love or hate, but you just can’t ignore him. The producers got very excited when he arrived. Though he can no longer belt them out like he used to, his booming voice, hip-hop lyrics and complete unpredictability gave the Northern Shower the edge the producers were looking for.

But will it work? They’ve certainly come up with a strong list of ditties.

Children of the Devolution. A couple of numbers from the Police. I Fought the Law and the Law won. Power to the People. Stuck in the Middle With You. Come Out Ye Black and Tans. And a reworking of the Beatles LP, Devolver.

Yes, it would be fatuous to suggest there has been no creative tension between the stars, and yes, there have been a few stand-up rows over lyrics.

But at least there has been some links to the past for you nostalgics out there. Unbelievably, the Bert and Mr Tony are still there a decade later and still providing the same chorus line. They may have both lost their youthful boyband vigour since then and we may have all tired of their voices. But there’s no doubting their ability when it comes to a song and dance routine, especially the Bert’s tried and trusted ‘man in the anorak’ cameo which goes down a treat every time.

And now we come to a critical phase of the project. They have been working hard on the choreography aspects, with Mr Tony and Hugh Orde both coming in to do pre-planned star-turns during the week on MI5 and plastic bullets.

But despite the efforts to keep the whole creative project going, it’s sometimes hard when you are dealing with such a collection of massive egos, oh, I’m sorry I lost the run of myself, sensitive souls.

And The Beards meet today to decide whether they’ll continue with the project or call it a day.

“It’s just the chemistry, man,” an insider told us. “These cats. They just ain’t gelling. The vibes are not good.”

But you must remember that The Beards survived the worst excesses that went with their punk traditionalist lifestyle. Unfortunately, a hell of a lot of others weren’t so lucky.

Unlike the Reverend who still has weekly residencies in venues throughout the North, The Beards have sacrificed everything for this one project.

Having taken at least two years longer than they thought, and having gone woefully over budget, they had to take a short break around Christmas 2004.

Then they did a quick money-making album, Beards and Balaclavas: The Greatest Hits, which did wonders for their bank balance (€40 million reputedly) but led to accusations that they had sold out creatively.

Anyway, they are now back on track, and rehearsing furiously to get this project finished on time. Yes, it is difficult when they and the Reverend do separate rehearsals. Nobody is even sure if they’re singing out of the same hymn sheet.

Enda Kenny learned how secure being a Fine Gael leader was this week.
But Bertie Ahern is already shaping out, longetivty wise, to be like one of those leaders of post-Soviet countries in Central Asia.
He was at his 'The Bert' best when being interviewed by Gerry Barry on RTÉ Radio's This Week .
Barry asked him when he was going to retire and The Bert came out with his usual spiel that he will be 60 just before the 2012 election is called, and God willing, he will continue until then... and no longer.
But did not Tony Blair who also wanted to see out a third term but was muscled out of office by Gordon Brown two years earlier.
Quite reasonably, Barry - who is still scalpel-sharp in questioning - put it to him that he couldn't expect to see out three terms and then hand it over to his successor just before a General Election. Sure, what could a new leader do with only a couple of months to go to an election.
Naturally, Ahern must know that he can't stay until the end but he probably very keen to avoid the mistake Blair made. By stating categorically that he would stand down, the questions kept coming at Blair like suitcases on a carousel.
There was no escape.
If Ahern wins a third term, the journalists will first report on his coronation and then quickly turn to his abdication, whenver that will be. It will dog him. Maybe not as much as it did Blair who had also Gordon Brown breathing down his neck.
And what of the possible FF successors. Well Brian Cowen looks like he's happy to wait until he's sixty before taking over the reins. Micheál Martin's chances have ebbed. Dermot Ahern is making more shapes than anybody else but will he get support, from his colleagues or have that populist appeal that is the sine qua non of FF leader? Ahern may falter on the electabilility test. The same doubts surround the stretchability of Mary Hanafin's appeal.
With that kind of inertia in the ranks below him, no wonder Ahern is so secure in his position. But if none of the indolent kids show any interest in taking over the family business, whatever about 2007, FF will get wallopped in 2012. Too far away? Not at all. Sinn Fein - the long term strategists par excellence - are already looking at 2017.
PS. Despite all his experience, The Bert still uses scripts for the more tricky questions in one-on-one interviews. Seasoned Bert watchers could hear the script talking it in the first answer he gave to Gerry Barry in that RTE interview until Barry interjected and did some real probing.