Soldiers of Rearguard appear to want to be beaten

WE IN the Parliamentary Violence Corps (PVC) are extremely apprehensive as a result of recent rumblings concerning the political situation after the next election. Our concern is largely to do with the likelihood of new outbreaks of parlimentary violence, following the current period of relative calm.

Parliamentary violence and domestic violence have much in common. Even those blissfully unfamiliar with the experience of marital disharmony have some knowledge of the phenomenon from watching TV copshow or those occasional fly on the back seat of a panda car documentaries showing the day to day work of police on the beat. The "domestic incident" is a set piece. The police are called to the home of a couple who are using one another for punchbags. Usually, it is the woman who is getting the worst of it. When the police arrive, the complainant accuses her attacker of all manner of crimes and swears that, this time, she is going to leave him and have him thrown in jail where he belongs.

As a viewer, one identifies with the victim, feeling a mixture of anger at her abuser and relief that the police have arrived in time to save the day. Then, in both fictional and non fictional portrayals, you begin to detect in the discussions of the police officers a note somewhere between cynicism and resignation. They have been here before, and heard the same accusation and promises to put an end to it for once and for all. They have taken statements, prepared evidence and sent the file to the prosecutor's office. And then, at the last moment, the victim retracts, refuses to testify and goes back to the abuser. Within a short time, the cycle begins once again.

This familiar scenario began to reinsinuate itself over the past couple of weeks, listening to Bertie Ahern's public musings about whether he would prefer to go into coalition with the Labour Party or the Progressive Democrats. Down here at the PVC we throw our hands in the air when we hear Bertie say that a Fianna Fail PD coalition is his "preferred option" after the next election.

Does he remember anything? And then, even as our hands remain suspended in mid air, we hear that Bertie might consider getting back with the Labour Party. There may even be some suggestion of a menage a trois.

THIS is a deeply troubling matter. We in the PVC have been called out on umpteen occasions to deal with the consequences of Fianna Fail's perverse and seemingly insatiable appetite for abuse. What makes it more perplexing is that this sad and disturbing case runs counter to the general trend in such abuse situations.

Normally, it is the weaker partner who suffers most, but Fianna Fail has always been numerically much stronger than any of its chosen partners. It appears that once the initial courtship is over, Fianna Fail's strongly masochistic disposition begins to emerge, causing the party to acquiesce in a form of role reversal which allows the weaker party to dominate. Thus emasculated, the party is then rendered helpless in the event of some of the favoured ado masochistic practices going out of control.

On occasions too numerous to count, we have been called to Leinster House, sometimes at the dead of night, to find the senior partner strapped to the marital bed with its backside reddened from the whip wielded by the junior partner.

As frequently occurs in these cases, the weight of the complaint concerns psychological torture. The complainant tells of being subjected to constant verbal abuse by the perpetrator.

On a number of occasion, Fianna Fail has made statements alleging that its "culture" has been denigrated, that its moral probity has been called into question, that its leader has been changed and that it has been driven out into the street at the dead of night. The complainant has been called "cancer", a "virus", a "blight" and, somewhat ironically, a "scourge".

Never once have any of the junior partners attempted to deny any of these charges, at most making some lame complaint about the senior partner stealing its clothes. (Cross dressing is a common enough ritual practice in this kind of kinky political behaviour.) Indeed, on a couple of occasions the remarks complained of were repeated in our presence, with the junior partner informing us that Fianna Fail was an "evil spirit" which was corrupting the political system.

TIME and again, we have been convinced that Fianna Fail must have learned its lesson. But on every occasion when we have attempted to bring things to a conclusion, we have been left high and dry. We take statements, prepare evidence, submit the file. Then, standing in the witness box, the complainant points at the defendant and says "that is someone I can do business with".

There are those who remain perplexed at the extreme differences, ostensibly at least, between Fianna Fail's favoured partners. By way of explanation, they decide that Fianna Fail must be "addicted to power". Power is but a minor fetish compared to Fianna Fail's self mortificatory addiction to having its butt whipped for the sins of the party from Doherty back to Dev.

The craving takes slightly different forms as between the two favoured partners. It sometimes requires the stilettoed leader of the Progressive Democrats to begin whispering sweet nothings about fiscal rectitude for the craving to direct itself in that direction, whereas the very mention of the name of the leader of the Labour Party is enough to send Fianna Fail into paroxysms of self flagellatory anticipation.

Several times in the past we have offered to give Fianna Fail a new identity and set it up on its own in a new niche. We have peddled no illusions, pointing out that things would be tough in the beginning but would improve with time. Sooner or later, we have urged, Fianna Fail must get over its perverse addiction to abuse, and learn to stand on its own two feet.

Our advice, it would appear, has fallen on deaf ears. Yet again, there is all this talk about the party "getting into bed" with one or other of its erstwhile abusers. Once again, Fianna Fail is ready to lick the boots that kicked it. From our point of view, it doesn't matter which partner it chooses - our experience tells us that both Labour and the PDs nurture deep seated fantasies of degradation and revenge. (Some hold that both suffer from a congenital deviant behavioural complex known as "Taoiseach envy", but we will leave such abstract theorising to the psychoanalysts.)

The consequences will be the same either way. It will all come to grief as usual. One night, not too long from now, we will receive over the radio a message that Fianna Fail has been harnessed, corsetted and gagged, and is being ridden around Leinster House wearing a collar and leash, a slave to the agenda of its junior partner. This time, we will switch off the radio and go home to bed. For Fianna Fail, it would seem, is a party determined to be beaten.