New shine on old tricks as Cash for Silver plan unveiled

MIRIAM LORD

DÁIL SKETCH : LONG, LONG ago, way back in the mists of time, a different coalition was in power.

It must be all of a year ago now.

Which, to the political mind, is the equivalent of ancient history. Because the electorate, you see, possesses the attention span of a gnat.

Who’ll ever remember what was said back then by an indignant Enda or an incandescent Eamon or an apoplectic Rabbitte?

Week in, week out, they scaled the dizzy heights of dudgeon from their opposition base camp.

And nothing riled them more than the Fianna Fáil coalition regularly ducking its responsibility to the Dáil by making major government announcements outside the chamber.

At the very least, it displayed a discourtesy to parliament. Opposition deputies found it galling when they were routinely left out of the loop by a government that chose to bypass them when unveiling hugely important decisions.

Bertie Ahern, and then Brian Cowen, remained untroubled by their anger, smilingly impervious to the red-faced thundering of Eamon Gilmore and the desk-thumping Enda Kenny.

Things would be different when they got into power. The primacy of the national parliament would return.

Dáil Éireann convened as usual at half past 10 yesterday morning.

Word had broken the night before that the Government was due to outline its programme for the disposal of some of our national assets.

Or the family silver, as they are commonly known.

But while the Taoiseach was in place as usual when the business of Leaders’ Questions commenced, the press gallery was notably bare. The hacks, it seemed, had had a better offer.

Earlier in the morning, an invitation arrived from the Department of Public Expenditure: Minister Brendan Howlin was at home and receiving guests.

He would be revealing the list of State assets that the Government intends to put up for sale.

But not a word of it in the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin didn’t bring up the subject of Brendan’s new Cash for Family Silver scheme.

He must have presumed that the new Government would stay true to their opposition promises and do the House the courtesy of telling them about it first.

So instead, he asked about hospital waiting lists and the National Treatment Purchase Fund.

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams, meanwhile, was quietly fuming.

(Enda will have been familiar with his unhappiness, having been that soldier in Old God’s Time – not just at the start of last year, but for over a decade.)

Gerry said he had intended to speak on the same topic as Micheál, but he was most put out by news he had just heard.

“As we sit here, Minister Howlin is in another building announcing the sale of State assets to the tune of €3 billion. And I, as a person who has the privilege of leading the Sinn Féin party as part of the Opposition, I must depend on someone sending me a text to tell me of this.”

Recognise anything, Enda?

“Is this not a matter that should have come to the chamber for us to discuss?”

As is his wont, Deputy Adams veered between English and Irish as he made his point.

This, perhaps, confused him when he said the Government’s excuse for the sell-off is that the troika is making them do it.

But he called our economic overlords “the Trócaire”. Which was apt, given that it was Ash Wednesday and Ireland is now a charity case, crippled trying to fill the biggest Trócaire box in the world.

Of course, Gerry might also have lapsed into the lingo because Mary Lou McDonald was sitting beside him wearing a lovely black dress with a large white collar, giving her the appearance of an Irish Sister of Charity on a visit to the Dáil as part of her Lenten penance.

The Labour Party in particular should be ashamed of itself, giving away the family silver, said Gerry. “It’s the Government’s decision and well may the Minister for Energy smile. He will be the Minister from the Labour Party who gives away what’s left of our assets.”

And Pat continued to smile.

Would the Taoiseach like to enlighten the Dáil now on what Brendan Howlin is telling people outside the chamber?

Enda gave a brief rundown on the plan.

And anyway, it had been widely put about that Minister Howlin would be having a press conference about it.

We were back to the days of the Fianna Fáil coalition, with the opposition complaining about being ignored.

“Now is there something odd in that it takes a leader of Sinn Féin to tell this chamber what the Government is doing, that that Government does not tell deputies here what is happening?” asked Gerry.

“It was on national radio,” shrugged Enda.

And Pat continued to smile.

“Did you sleep through it?” he said to Gerry.

Oh, how soon they forget.

“Why did the Government not give the Dáil the courtesy it deserved by making this announcement to those of us, like the Taoiseach, who have a mandate?” continued Gerry, wasting his words on the morning air.

“Is there no respect at all on the part of this Government for Teachtaí Dála?”

The Taoiseach repeated that everyone knew Brendan Howlin was going to make his announcement at a press conference.

Clearly, Enda couldn’t see what was eating Gerry.

And hadn’t he just given him the gist of Brendan’s plan?

It seems the high-flown promises of a year ago have been shelved.

Meanwhile, just down the road on Merrion Street, Brendan Howlin was doing his thing, supplying the detail that the Dáil chamber couldn’t hear.

Two billion for the troika’s Trócaire box, and a billion for us.

Some information began trickling back to the Dáil, so the Opposition asked about it during the Order of Business.

If anything is to be done about selling the assets of Coillte, the State forestry company, “the trees, rather than the land will be disposed of; the timber, not the land,” explained Enda.

As for Aer Lingus . . .

Deputy Billy Kelleher jumped in.

“It’ll be the wings, not the planes.”

It fell to Mattie McGrath to say the obvious: “the Taoiseach can’t see the wood for the trees.”

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