If we could turn back time

Hardly anybody had an easy 2010, but some people had a tougher time than others, writes Kathy Sheridan

AT A STRETCH it might be dubbed the year sex, drugs and eh, pop’n’roll laid waste to a few reputations.

MP Iris Robinson contributed mightily to the first category, introducing a slack-jawed populace to 19-year-old Kirk McCambley, for whom she had managed to broker loans of £50,000 from two developers for a cafe. After which she and the word “hypocrisy” became inseparable.

Never slow to quote the Bible at wrong-doers, she had condemned homosexuality as “an abomination” only the year before. But she was suffering an “acute psychiatric illness”, said her husband and DUP leader, Peter. It’s fair to say that line of defence brought little sympathy to the pair. He lost his Westminster seat of 31 years, details of extravagant expenses saw the light of day (including Iris’s claim for a €345 Mont Blanc pen) and they both remain under pressure to answer questions about property deals. Anything but an (old-fashioned) gay year then for the Swish Family Robinson.

An inquest verdict implicating cocaine in the death of the bright, part-child, part-adult, larger-than-life Gerry Ryan leaves him in the second category, despite confident media reports in June declaring there were no such substances in the toxicology report.

While devoted listeners reeled at the allegation that his big Eurovision presentation was fuelled by cocaine, Ryan’s reputation was further shredded by reports of shady drug deals, and a parallel row rages over who knew what and when and how they could have stopped it. But who could have stopped Gerry Ryan?

Drugs of a different kind reared their head in revelations of Neil Prendeville’s bizarre solo performance involving some rather intimate exposition on a London-Cork flight. He put the episode down to a blend of alcohol and anti-inflammatories, but persistent rumours prompted the Cork 96FM presenter to announce he was taking a toxicology test to prove he had “never taken cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, nothing”. At time of going to press, he is still off the airwaves.

Ronan Keating’s choirboy reputation also took a hiding this year, after pop’n’roll revelations of an affair with a 26-year-old dancer. It happened on tour, as all the best rock’n’roll stories do, although it certainly didn’t stay on tour – for which the tabloids will be offering thanks this financial year.

Nama-bound property developer Johnny Ronan, on the other hand, never pretended to be a choirboy – which was grand in the days of public excess. But even he managed to misread the zeitgeist at several levels with the Glenda/Rosanna ruckus. What price a street brawl involving an unseemly kick in the groin from one model reciprocated by a toe to her rear, culminating in an overnight trip to Marrakech with another model plus one? About the equivalent of a year’s old-age pension (including maximum allowances). Plus priceless chunks of dignity.

Others who would doubtless like to wipe 2010 from the record include Trevor Sargent, Willie O’Dea, Richard Bruton, George Lee, Charlie Bird and Brian Lenihan.

Bruton's inability to lie through his teeth during a Prime Timeinterview triggered a heave against Enda Kenny and political calamity for Bruton. The rebels were poorly organised, didn't have the numbers and leaked like a sieve. But they've learned.

Given another punt at it, said Olwyn Enright, a member of the Plinth Nine, “you’d have a more limited number of people. That sort of thing has to actually be plotted. That’s the bottom line . . . ”.

But for Bruton, for now, it’s hard to see a way back from such a thorough bruising. The glint may be returning to his eye but the debacle cost him vast dollops of pride, ambition and possibly, the future finance minister’s brief. With Michael Noonan’s stature growing by the day, he serves as a warning to all young pretenders.

Would George Lee have joined the Plinth Nine, had he not cut and run after only eight months? Hardly. Back then, Richard Bruton was perceived as the main stumbling block to Lee’s ambitions. Think what might have been had he hung in there . . .

After landing in Dáil Eireann on a magic carpet of 27,000 first-preference votes, Lee made the belated discovery that Kildare St is a land of sole practitioners. In the aftermath, as his supporters insisted that the "system" had let him down, those genuinely without a voice in today's Ireland looked on incredulously. Having been parachuted into one of the safest seats in the country, with instant recognition, multiple media platforms at his command and a guaranteed front-bench career, was this man seriously complaining that the system had stripped him of a voice? So it's been a year to forget for George Lee. Tainted by his association with Fine Gael, there was no way back to his powerful economics job at RTÉ. Though given refuge in the form of the Saturday morning business show, nicely sandwiched between the highly popular Playbackand Marian Finucane, it's hardly surprising that Lee has never settled comfortably into a format created for the playfully irreverent John Murray. His latest role may well be as a big warning sign flashing before the eyes of other high-profile figures currently being approached by desperate political parties.

If Brian Lenihan is of a mind to see the glass half full, he may be happy that at least he managed to hold on to the actual Finance Minister’s crown in 2010 – even while European economists were naming him worst finance minister in Europe, again. Though economists have hardly been distinguishing themselves as a species either. Nonetheless, after a year that began with revelations of his serious illness and consequent elevation to hero status, it is all ending rather badly.

As recently as September, Lenihan, at 39 per cent, had a decisive lead in the race for next leader of Fianna Fáil, more than twice the support of Micheál Martin, according to an Irish Times opinion poll. By December, his support had collapsed to 25 per cent and Martin (who suffered the tragic loss of a child in October), had climbed to top billing at 28 per cent.

The massive drop in support for Lenihan was in the wake of EU-EMF bailout, the Budget and more calamitous news from the banks of course, but the suspicion is that his relentless happy talk about having turned corners, along with increasingly transparent efforts to distance himself from colleagues, have begun to catch up with him. For Lenihan, 2010 may prove to be the year when the tide swept in, then ebbed away.

Another major FF casualty of 2010 was Willie O'Dea. "I suppose I'm going a bit too far when I say this, but I'd like to ask Mr Quinlivan is the brothel still closed?" wondered the Minister for Defence, sotto voce (he thought), to the Limerick Leader'sMike Dwane. O'Dea was talking about local Sinn Féin election candidate Maurice Quinlivan and no, Dwane hadn't heard about the brothel. Much later, O'Dea swore an affadavit that he hadn't made the remark. Sadly for him, Dwane had recorded it, and Quinlivan was awarded damages after O'Dea retracted his denial and apologised in court.

An interesting sidebar to the event was the belated recognition of the much-derided but inescapable power of tweeting – Senator Dan Boyle’s thoughts were proving more influential than anything being said by Greens in the Dáil. Equally interesting was the source of the story peddled by O’Dea. “Just general chit chat” from the Garda Síochána, he said.

His turn on Livelinethis month, defending the Rubberbandits against accusations of glorifying drugs, confirmed he was back in his pomp. He was also perky enough to laugh at a satirical swipe at himself by the same crew – sample line: "I swear on my tache it's decent hash." So it might be said that O'Dea ends the year on a high. And with an election just round the corner co-incidentally . . .

Unlike Trevor Sargent, who lost his junior ministry after revelations that he had made representations on behalf of a constituent charged with threatening behaviour. Amid general sympathy, Sargent called his action “an error of judgment”, but was irredeemably hoist on his own petard. Eight years before, he led the criticism of then junior minister Bobby Molloy who had to resign after his office contacted a judge in a rape case.

Given that the news surfaced within a week of O’Dea’s forced resignation, there were accusations of Fianna Fáil dirty tricks. In fact, it turned out to be just another Garda leak.

Meanwhile, at RTÉ, Lee’s very public flight back to Montrose’s arms coincided unhappily with the news of a homesick Charlie Bird’s return from Washington, making the station look a bit like a home for wounded creatures. Having covered the Haitian earthquake and memorably bearded Anglo-Irish Bank’s David Drumm in his Cape Cod hideaway, a two-part documentary about his first year in the US saw Bird speak of his “madness” in moving to Washington DC, his lack of contacts and zero recognition.

By June he was back in Ireland to take up his previous job as RTÉ’s chief news correspondent, amid some reportedly icy fáiltes in the newsroom.