Hysteria in the House over 'Willie stay or Willie go?'

DÁIL SKETCH:Consensus, civility and a commitment to carbon credits will get a junior coalition partner only so far

ON WEDNESDAY, The Greens lay back and thought of Ireland.

Yesterday, they came looking for a moustache on a plate.

They got it.

It signalled the moment when political steel finally entered the soul of the Green Party.

The previous day, they were reluctant players in the Dáil fiasco that was the confidence vote in a deeply compromised Minister Willie O’Dea.

In the face of Opposition contempt and derision, Green deputies rolled over for a tickle on the tum from the Taoiseach, then trooped meekly through the lobby to keep O’Dea in office.

It proved an embarrassment too far for John Gormley and his niche group of nice parliamentarians.

Compromise, consensus, civility and a commitment to carbon credits will get a junior coalition partner only so far in government. Particularly when the senior partner is Fianna Fáil.

Did they really want to be known as doormats for O’Dea? By yesterday morning, the question on everyone’s lips was: Willie stay? Or Willie go? The Government battled to keep the lid on the growing controversy. A vote had been taken and a decision reached. They hoped this would be the end of the matter.

But the saga of Willie, his ham-fisted attempt to smear a political rival, his subsequent denial of having labelled him a brothel-keeper and then his attempts to blame everyone bar himself when he was found out, was never going to go quietly.

The Greens were mortified to find themselves dragged into the episode. Party chairman Dan Boyle fired the opening, er, tweet, on the night of the vote, setting in motion a train of events that ended last night in O’Dea’s resignation from the Government.

Was this the first instance of political death by tweet?, asked the Leinster House wags.

As the morning wore on, the Greens were reportedly “wobbling” like a band of drunken sailors trying to cross a rope bridge.

It didn’t help their sense of inner calm to have Wednesday’s confidence motion uproariously revisited in the Dáil during an Order of Business that lasted over 2½ hours, with a suspension of the House, three votes and the Government surviving one of them thanks to the Ceann Comhairle’s casting vote.

This led to much merriment over the realisation that the Opposition would have carried the day if George Lee had been present. At least the former TD Lee will have something to tell his grandchildren when they ask him what he did to solve the great economic crisis of 2010. “I resigned, children, and helped keep in power the Fianna Fáil administration that I, George Lee, left RTÉ to fight.”

A sort of hysteria gripped Leinster House, the sort of madness that always pervades the place when a big political name is on the line. “Yesterday was a bad day for democracy!” quivered The Real Inda. “A Vurry Bad Day!”

Fianna Fáil’s Johnny Brady wasn’t going to let him away with that. “The week before was worse!”

The Green deputies looked close to collapse. Food Minister Trevor Sargent was spared the ordeal – he’s abroad on departmental business. Reporters who phoned him for a comment were met with the anguished wail: “I’m in Nuremburg!”

Meanwhile, there wasn’t a sign of Willie O’Dea. Rumour had it he decamped to Limerick to be with his own people.

The Greens were already regretting falling into step so easily with Fianna Fáil, realising they had been expertly hustled into the confidence debate by their Machiavellian partners.

They were demented by the afternoon, after hearing O’Dea’s tour de farce on the lunchtime news. He was a brave man to brave RTÉ’s Sean O’Rourke, who has a history of reeling in political careers. Willie proceeded to deliver his extraordinary victim impact statement to a gobsmacked nation.

The recording – O’Dea sounded like he was auditioning for a role in the next series of Killinascully – of his conversation with Limerick journalist Mike Dwane was replayed on news bulletins again and again.

Then Liveline kicked in, and the people queued up to tell Joe about their anger with O’Dea, Brian Cowen and the Green Party.

To cap an inglorious day for Irish politics, the O’Dea interview was featured on the evening television news, complete with subtitles.

Hence the trip to the Taoiseach by John Gormley and the demand for a moustache on a plate.

Either that, or The Greens would leave government.

Yet, in the afternoon, Cowen was still standing by his minister. But while he tried to hang tough, you could hear that Biffo’s heart wasn’t in it and his body language was that of a man who was deeply annoyed to have been dropped in it by O’Dea.

Back in Leinster House, there was scant sympathy for O’Dea among the Fianna Fáil backbenchers. Many had gone home to their constituencies long before news of O’Dea’s fate was known.

By teatime, there was still no Green smoke from the meeting of the junior partners. There was talk of a statement at 5pm. “They’ll be out at 5 expecting a sacking by 6,” it was predicted.

But that didn’t happen. The politicians cleared off for the weekend, leaving distracted journalists racing around the corridors, the Greens in conclave and most of the Cabinet in a huddle on Merrion Street.

A well-known PR consultant was seen entering Leinster House with a Green Party adviser and they disappeared in the direction of Government Buildings.

Six o’clock came and went. An hour later there were firm indications that O’Dea was gone from office. At 8.49pm Brian Cowen issued a statement. He had accepted Willie’s resignation.

There will be much sympathy and sadness in Leinster House for what happened to Willie O’Dea. However, in this case, there will be few who will say he didn’t deserve to go.

Meanwhile, Senator Dan Boyle had a sentence up in big letters on his Facebook page: “Everything is my fault.” As ever, the story moves on. The focus now turns to Cowen and his judgment, the importance he places on party and loyalty, and whether it skews his sense of priority and propriety to a damaging degree.

Biffo’s statement was brief, in contrast to the bullish defence of his Minister on Wednesday.

And then the scary bit: “The Taoiseach has assigned the Department of Defence to himself for the present.” Oh, thank God we never went nuclear. We’ll be at war in a week.