Art of stroke politics prompts mutinous mutterings

John McNulty was appointed to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) on September 12th and resigned yesterday, 13 days after his appointment. No board meetings took place during that time – indeed the next one is not until November.

In his fortnight’s stint as a board member he did not visit the museum in Kilmainham in an official capacity, nor did he meet any other Imma board members or senior staff.

Yet, that “temporary little arrangement” obviously gave the Donegal-based businessman sufficient qualifications to satisfy the requirements of the culture and education panel of Seanad Éireann. He is the Fine Gael candidate in the byelection to replace Deirdre Clune, who was elected to the European Parliament. Because the electorate is comprised of TDs and Senators he is certain to be elected, as the Government has a sizeable majority.

His elevation had little to do with modern art; rather it was an expression of the rather darker art of political stroke-pulling. It is clear Fine Gael was concerned McNulty would not have the credentials to get across the line for the panel (while the panels have become redundant in practical terms there are still very strict criteria for qualifications). So Taoiseach Enda Kenny or somebody close to him instructed Minister for Arts Heather Humphreys to appoint McNulty to the Imma board.

Brazen it out

That she duly did. The story came out. They were rumbled. And they have chosen to brazen it out. Yesterday, both Kenny and Humphreys, in grimace-inducing performances, deflected all questions about the circumstances surrounding McNulty’s appointment.

They evaded questions about who suggested his appointment or about Humphreys’s level of knowledge that McNulty he would be Fine Gael’s candidate when she appointed him to Imma.

The reason for the demure responses? To give a straight answer would have meant having to come clean about the chicanery. In the scheme of things it seems relatively minor but it has escalated into a sizeable political embarrassment for Kenny. The reason for that is that one of the five planks of Fine Gael’s mandate for political reform was “new politics”.

Since becoming Fine Gael leader over a decade ago, Kenny has railed against cronyism. He derided Fianna Fáil for making 60 political appointments to State boards immediately before the 2002 election. In February 2011, he said political life had been dominated for 13 years by “the politics of cronyism to the benefit of a small groups of insiders who were friends of Fianna Fáil”.

Looked at from this distance, the new politics of Fine Gael seems very much like the old politics of Fianna Fáil.

Cronyism

While Kenny and others denied flatly that McNulty’s appointment was cronyism or a stroke, it had all the appearances of one. Famous ones include Charlie Haughey appointing Fine Gael’s Dick Burke as commissioner so that Fianna Fáil could win the byelection and restore a Dáil majority; and Jim Tully’s famous constituency redraw in the 1970s. Most of them backfired. And so has this one. Only a week after really strong economic figures were published, the wherewithal of Fine Gael has been sullied by a cynical piece of stroke-pulling.

Politically, it’s not going to be a deal-breaker. Labour has mostly stayed out of it but will vote for McNulty because the Coalition needs every vote it can get in the Seanad. But it has stoked a debate about poor practices and arrogance and Enda Kenny being out of touch.

There was merit in John Deasy’s arguments yesterday but he took out a wrecking ball to crack a nut. While few of his colleagues will go as far as he did, surprisingly many did not disagree with his sentiments about the leadership. And for Fine Gael’s leadership there’s a new problem that is serious if not a clear and present threat.

Just as it seems to have got through the gap economically, there are now mutinous rumblings that the leadership is becoming increasingly autocratic and out of touch.