Miriam Lord’s Week: Taoiseach butters up the farmers

The Taoiseach was buttering up the farmers big time at a dinner in the Red Cow Hotel on Tuesday night.

The occasion was the 60th annual meeting of the Irish Farmers’ Association and the perennially late Enda found himself in the unfamiliar situation of being able to draw attention to somebody else’s poor timekeeping.

Simon Coveney arrived in the middle of proceedings and hovered in the doorway while the Taoiseach was speaking.

Enda saw his Minister for Agriculture lurking in the distance.

“You might come over Simon. You don’t need to be standing at the door,” he shouted, in the way a priest might call up a few loitering lads from the back of the church.

Coveney went bright red. The farmers, who have often camped outside the Minister’s door, had a great laugh.

Then Enda, true to form, launched into one of his odd anecdotes.

“I have to say Coveney has worked all the hours that God gave him in dealing with farmers, who know how to work ministers” he began.

“When I used to come on the train to Dublin years ago you’d have certain men desperate to get on that train as well. And, bejaysus, you’d hear them from one end of the train to the other by the time we got to Dublin.

“Every week!

“I had to go back to the car and drive again because I couldn’t get away from them sometimes.”

And the farmers beamed with pride.

“But I have to say that while some might think they were still on the land [when] shouting inside the room, it was always constructive and there was always a single objective in mind.”

Then he turned to IFA President, Eddie Downey: “I wish we had the same discipline within some of the parties to keep the thing focused on whatever it’s supposed to be.”

We don’t know if Simon – who has been slightly off message recently – turned bright red again. And did Enda just come up with a slogan for the general election?

“Fine Gael – keeping the thing focused on whatever it’s supposed it be.”

The Taoiseach took the opportunity to sing the praises of former tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, forcing a second political guest at the dinner to blush.

“He and I had to stand at the edge of the greatest economic abyss that our country ever faced and decide what to do to pull back our country from that brink. And it wasn’t easy and it’s not easy and Eamon Gilmore made choices that were not popular” quivered Enda, with a hint of a sideswipe at Labour’s wobbly TDs for ditching his buddy last May.

“When we faced down the president of the [European] parliament and the Commission people, when things were getting rough, Gilmore stood his grounds in the interests of Ireland.”

It was very touching, we hear. There wasn’t a dry glass in the house.

Enda left earlier than usual as he had to go home and swot up for his interview with Pat Kenny the following morning. He made up for it by posing for photographs with the farmers between courses and after his speech, he sat on the edge of the stage talking to them until it was time to leave.

From war of words on Twitter to sound of silence in the lift

We bumped into a rather shook-looking Aodhán Ó Ríordáin in the Leinster House 2000 annex on Tuesday afternoon.

The Labour Minister of State for Culture, New Communities and Equality revealed he just had an unsettling experience in a lift with Gerry Adams.

Needless to say, we had to hear more.

Turns out that Aodhán became involved in a row on Twitter after Monday night’s Claire Byrne Live programme, when the Tánaiste and Adams got stuck into each other in a studio debate.

Ó Ríordáin confessed he sent “a nasty tweet” about Gerry Adams when the debate finished.

We looked it up. Clearly, Aodhán thought his party leader, Joan Burton, won the argument. So he took to his iPhone to say so.

“Poor Gerry. In the old days difficult women were disappeared or interrogated by kangaroo courts. No contest on #CBlive.”

His tweet provoked a stream of mainly outraged replies, but with some agreeing with the minister’s rather tasteless comment.

Among those disappointed with Aodhan’s tweet was Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien. “In fairness Aodhan that’s a disgraceful tweet & you know it. Thought you were better than that tbh.”

These politicians take their tweeting very seriously. The following day, Ó Ríordán was in the Labour Party offices on the fifth floor of Leinster House 2000 – Sinn Féin occupy the floor above them.

“I pressed the button and the door opened. Gerry and Jonathan were standing inside. I got in. There was a strained silence. I was mortified” he recalls.

“Then Gerry spoke: ‘Chonaic mé do tweet.”

Aodhan said nothing. Jonathan said nothing.

“Bhí sé an-pearsanta” continued Gerry. (It was very personal.) Silence.

And then Adams smiled at O’Riordain. “I suppose it’s all a bit of a game.”

To which (according to the Minister) he replied: “Tá sé níos tábhachtaí ná cluiche.” (It’s much more important than a game.) Finally, the lift stopped. Aodhán raced out, mumbling a parting shot: “Ní Gandhi atá ionat.” (You’re not Gandhi.) “I haven’t felt so embarrassed since Eamon Gilmore caught me doing an impersonation of him at a Labour conference.”

Of course those deputies who don’t speak Irish can feel a bit left out sometimes.

Mick Wallace felt that way on Wednesday night, when the Dáil was debating the Workplace Relations Bill and Sinn Féin's Peadar Toibin delivered his contribution in the native tongue.

È possible per me a parlare in Italiano?” sighed Mick. No.

Language can get people into all sorts of trouble.

Like the new sign above the new toasters the Dáil canteen.

“Please use plastic thongs provided.” At least that explains the squeaky noises emanating from the chamber’s leather seats.

Cat’s out of the bag as Lowry’s note falls into the wrong paws

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw.

And the hunt was on this week for the political hidden paw who snaffled Michael Lowry’s lovely girl note to the Taoiseach on Tuesday.

It followed the Sunday Independent's publication of a note written by the Independent TD for Tipperary North to the Taoiseach, putting in a word for his former PR adviser who is hoping to be reappointed to the Board of the National Transport Authority.

The very capable Valerie O’Reilly has a strong business background and in recommending her for reappointment, Lowry pointed out that not only is she a woman, but she is bright, intelligent and “not bad looking either.”

We had wondered why veteran politician Lowry bothered lobbying Enda, when all State board appointments are now supposed to be the preserve of the Public Appointments Service. The Government set it up in the interests of openness, transparency, a new democracy and preventing further embarrassing episodes of stroke politics.

However, reader Steve White has been in touch to point out that all is not as it seems.

According to the guidelines issued by the Department of Public Expenditure “there are a number of specific exceptions from the arrangements” where it is open to ministers to make appointments “other than strictly in accordance with the process”.

Those exceptions (and it’s a long list) include proposed re-appointments where the minister is satisfied, having consulted the Chair, that the member has done a good job.

So Lowry wasn’t wasting his time, as it turns out. Somewhere along the line last Wednesday, Enda mislaid/dropped the note. It, allegedly, fell into Labour hands and ended up in the Sindo.

In Leinster House, the finger of suspicion was immediately pointed in the direction of the party's deputy leader Alan Kelly, who also happens to be Lowry's constituency rival. Our Minister for the Environment is no shrinking violet and is quite the political scrapper.

However, Macavity Kelly was nowhere near the scene of the crime on Wednesday. When the Taoiseach was in the chamber, Alan was attending a series of meetings in Longford and Mullingar. If, as Lowry maintains he was told, a Labour TD picked up the note, it wasn’t Kelly.

The Minister’s advisers are affronted by the suggestion that their man is the phantom note-nicker.

Then again, he was back in Leinster House on Wednesday night for a vote. In plenty of time to hear of a colleague’s lucky find earlier in the day.

Lowry sees the hidden paw of Kelly at work. He believes, with not a shred of evidence to rely upon, that the note was passed onto a journalist with “the full knowledge” of his Tipperary rival.

In the fullness of time, he said, the public will be able to adjudicate on this style of politics.

Although it hasn’t done Lowry any harm in Tipp thus far.