A week is a long time.....
On Tuesday Enda Kenny came into the Dáil and said he knew nothing about a newspaper article the previous Sunday on the sale of Siteserv by the IBRC at a loss to the taxpayer of over €100m. By the end of the week, questions on this continued – it was the only question the media wanted to ask at a joint press conference the Taoiseach held with the French Prime Minister.
The coalition had been forced into action within days – announcing a review of transactions by the IBRC in the disposal of assets. It doesn’t go far enough for the Opposition – they want a Commission of Investigation.
The Government wants this issue to go away for now. Michael Noonan and Enda Kenny are certain the Government parties have “nothing to hide,” but they do not want a bank they obliterated from the landscape distracting from their central message.
Next week the coalition will announce its ‘Spring Statement.’ Initially devised last year in the midst of bad poll ratings over water charges as a means of refocusing the public’s attention on a resurgent Irish economy, it seems to have been scaled back from some sort of budgetary framework to a more general assessment of the economy and where they see things going in the year ahead. Dáil business has all but been cleared next week (no topical issues, no order of business) to allow for debate on this – minister after minister, backbencher after backbencher will stand up and say how great things are, how great the Government is, and how the Opposition has no better alternative to offer – and this will go on for three days.
What exactly the review is to tell us is unclear. It could be ‘investigated’ further by some Oireachtas committee. But key players are getting their message out now. Alan Dukes held a press conference on Friday, spending 66 minutes outlining just how fractious the relationship was between the former Anglo Irish Bank and the Department of Finance. His key message was ‘nothing to see here,’ all was above board, and he’s angry that a review would go looking for malpractice or criminality.
But this weekend the Opposition are determined not to let this go away the way the Government wants – it’s a central theme of Fianna Fáil’s Ard Fheis, and the Independent TD Catherine Murphy’s months of Trojan work in asking questions and submitting Freedom of Information requests have brought this to the fore. She wants answers, as she told Ivan Yates on Newstalk Breakfast:
An Ireland for all – even Fianna Fáil
The ‘Soldiers of Destiny’ gathered in Dublin this weekend for their 76th Ard Fheis – 3,000 of them, Micheál Martin proudly declared to the media, would be here for “the largest political event of the year.” The Fianna Fáil leader is determined that his time in purgatory is over, as is that of his party.
They’ve been criticised for a lack of policies, and a bit like waiting for a bus they’ve all come along together – health, childcare, small business, mortgage distress, drugs action, foreign policy – all have been published in the past week or so as the party sets out to prove it offers a credible alternative to the coalition.
They’ll be hoping for a poll bounce this weekend – to get away from the 17-19 per cent results in recent surveys that basically tell us they have the same support now as they had after the election four years ago. That bounce they hope can come from the controversy over the IBRC/Siteserv in a similar way they got a bounce last year when the Alan Shatter controversy erupted.
Micheál Martin now believes Fianna Fáil can be in Government after the next election – an election he believes could be as little as six months away. And he says his message is “An Ireland for All,” even Fianna Fáil.
The time for cutting is over – for the Tánaiste.
Politicians are now more than ever conscious of a picture telling a thousand words. Cutting cakes and even ribbons at openings is always a dangerous one – these could be re-used to represent budget cuts at a later date. This week there was a cake in Connolly hospital in Blanchardstown to mark the hospital’s 60th birthday. There were several tiers and so a substantial knife would be needed when it was to be cut by only two of the local TDs – Tánaiste Joan Burton and Health Minister Leo Varadkar (Deputy Ruth Coppinger was left to watch from the gathered audience, while the other TD for Dublin West, Joe Higgins was busy preparing for Banking Inquiry hearings).
Joan Burton was not going to hold the knife to cut the cake – quickly passing it to Leo Varadkar saying “this is the guy who was going to be a surgeon.” So the Health Minister was left to make the cut – but Joan had to be seen to be involved, so she rested her hand just above his wrist.
But as our video shows – there really was an awkwardness about the Health Minister who just didn’t seem to know what he was supposed to do.
Late, late, late – never a problem for Enda
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is a busy man – so busy in fact that most of the time he never turns up for any event on time. One of his latest episodes of lateness was the Special Summit in Brussels on Thursday to deal with the Mediterranean crisis. There’s even a twitter account these days monitoring the Taoiseach’s timekeeping.
EU summit in Brussels: 50 minutes
— How Late Was Enda? (@HowLateWasEnda) April 23, 2015
But to be fair to the Taoiseach, once he got out of the car he went immediately to the waiting Irish media and took questions on the summit and the controversy at home.
So what delayed him? Well a very busy morning at home. At 9.25 (he turned up at about 9:34) he was addressing a conference where the participants opened proceedings with the choir giving a rendition of the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’ (24 hours before the Taoiseach’s 64th birthday). Then he had to get to the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin for another speech there – this time to the Psychological Society of Ireland new guidelines for good practice for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual clients.
Then a trip to the Phoenix Park to address an economic conference organised at the US Ambassadors residence. Here a Kate Bush soundtrack played for the Taoiseach – but it was ‘Running Up That Hill’ rather than ‘Wuthering Heights.’
And the Taoiseach had one more event before boarding the plane for Brussels – to present purple flags to schoolchildren for achievements ‘as gaeilge.’ Here, selfies were the order of the day.
Some relief in Government circles this week when talk of a possible re-run of the Children’s Referendum in 2012 was ruled out. The Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the result, so the way is now clear for the rights of Children to be enshrined in Bunreacht na hEireann, more than two and a half years since the people voted to do so. Let’s see how quickly the coalition moves on this now.
