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Well, there you have it. No great surprises in that, were there? It was billed as a National Address but really it was in many ways a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the coalition partners. Quite rightly, the Opposition are getting a chance to reply.
The Fine Gael ardfheis started off quietly enough last night. The high-point of the evening when leader Enda Kenny and Deputy Lucinda Creighton publicly embraced to show that their recent spat at the parliamentary party was now water under the bridge.
Lucinda and Enda kiss and make up (Photograph by Frank Miller)
The row between the teachers’ unions and Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has overshadowed the issue of third-level college fees. These were removed by the Rainbow Coalition in 1996 when Labour’s Niamh Bhreathnach had that portfolio. (more…)
In the course of a lengthy interview with myself about his political career, conducted back in the 1980s, the late Charles Haughey asked me to switch off my tape recorder as he was about to impart some information on an off-the-record basis. We had been discussing his deceased colleague Donogh O’Malley, who as Minister for Education brought in free secondary schooling in the late 1960s. (more…)
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.” (more…)
