Going gets choppy as Senators debate merits of setting sail

SEANAD SKETCH:MOTORING AND seafaring metaphors abounded when the Seanad began debating the Nama legislation yesterday.

Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer set the tone when he raised public sector reform on the order of business. He wondered why there had not been reform, “if the Taoiseach is in the driving seat”.

It was, he said, “a little like Driving Miss Daisy in that he is giving orders from the back seat and telling people what to do when he should be driving reform”.

Political insults were briefly parked when Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan thanked the Senators for “having put their own personal interests and diaries aside’’ for the special Monday sitting. Independent Shane Ross, while critical of Nama, praised the Minister’s grasp of detail, noting how few civil servants were accompanying him.

Then it was back to partisan politics, with the Government and Opposition on a collision course.

Independent Eoghan Harris said that he would not “avoid the mechanics’’, but he wanted to remind the House that Nama was as much “a political vehicle and part of the political economy as it is an economic vehicle”. Nama, he said, was a brave project.

“It is most likely a flawed project, but we should give it a fair wind, which is why I say – we should all say – to the Minister, bon voyage,” he added.

Fine Gael’s Maurice Cummins asserted that Government backbenchers could not be absolved from blame for the economic crisis. “Where were the Mattie McGraths of this world when the ship of State was navigated towards the rocks?” he asked. The Nama legislation is due back in the Dáil on Thursday, raising the possibility of an all-night Seanad journey on Wednesday.

Seanad leader Donie Cassidy reminded Senators that they did not come as employees, but as members. “This means they are available to the nation 24 hours a day,” he said.

Independent David Norris was having none of it. “Rubbish, I am certainly not available 24 hours a day at any time,” he said.

There was enough “tripe” from people who thought they were available for those hours, he said.

Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe was poetic when he predicted failure for Nama, quoting Shelley’s lines, “that colossal wreck, boundless and bare . . .’’ The Seanad motorists and seafarers return to the fray today.