There was genuine feeling for the departing Taoiseach in the chamber – recognition that the end must come for all political careers, writes MIRIAM LORD
DURING THE speeches, Brian Cowen wore the look of a man who couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.
Until it was over.
“The Dáil now stands adjourned,” declared the Ceann Comhairle.
It was the moment they live for and they dread but know must always come.
The deputies of the 30th Dáil burst into applause. The tension of the previous hour evaporated.
Some rushed for the doors. Others lingered. Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, eager for the fray, punched the air with both fists. So too did Arthur Morgan of Sinn Féin, letting out a cheer as he left the chamber for the last time.
But the Taoiseach remained.
The leader of the Opposition quickly crossed the floor to the coveted seat he hopes to occupy soon. They shook hands warmly – Brian Cowen leaning down and Enda Kenny looking up. They talked for a while, it was a brief but intense discussion.
Were we witnessing the end of an era? It certainly felt like it.
A queue formed beside them – like a scene from a church removal. Deputies slowly converging from all sides of the House, waiting at a respectful distance until the two men finished their conversation.
Enda moved away and stood in the centre of the chamber, surveying the empty benches. Eamon Gilmore had already left.
The queue moved in.
There were handshakes and smiles and embraces. A kiss from Olywn Enright, his constituency colleague. A joke shared with PJ Sheehan, veteran of these occasions but now bowing out himself. Heartfelt good wishes from Joan Burton. Teary-eyed Fianna Fáil backbenchers, marking the moment. Outgoing Ministers proffering a hand and a few words.
Finally, Brian Cowen reached the end of the line. Everyone else had long since vacated their allotted places. He looked around, before edging along past the ministerial seats until he got to the stairs.
The man who didn’t want to be there was the last man out.
He bounded up to the top, where Jackie Healy-Rae was waiting. A final hurrah for him too – no more would the most
famous comb-over since Bobby Charlton grace, or grease, the Dáil.
“Jackie!” cried Biffo, and they executed an awkward high-five.
Then outgoing senator Donie Cassidy muscled in and took it upon himself to steer the Taoiseach around the curved rails to the exit, where he was met by ushers who would escort him out to his car for the journey to Áras an Uachtaráin.
“Good luck, lads,” Cowen said to them.
Then, just before he disappeared, he turned and looked up to the press gallery, where the press corps stood in silence, watching the curtain fall on his 27 years in Leinster House.
Brian Cowen waved, and walked out the doors . . .
Earlier, watched by his wife and two daughters, the Taoiseach led in his depleted Cabinet and began his valedictory speech. A hush descended on the chamber when he rose to his feet.
It was a short address. He remembered, with gratitude, his late father who gave him his love of politics. He talked of family and friendship and loyalty and touched on how the past 2½ years since he was elected Taoiseach had been “a time of great trial and test”.
He didn’t have it easy after Bertie Ahern threw him a hospital pass. Bertie, also leaving the political stage, sat in the back row, a disconsolate figure.
As Cowen spoke, we scanned the Fianna Fáil benches behind him and looked at the various personalities who strode through the years of the party’s supremacy.
We looked from one face to another. He’s gone. She’s gone. Going. Going. Gone. So many of them.
“In every decision I took as Taoiseach, I can honestly say the common good was my overriding concern, and the loyalty to this country and its people informed every choice I made,” he told the House.
There was a wistful quality to his words.
He quoted the late poet and philosopher John O’Donohue. (No, not the former ceann comhairle, otherwise known as The Bull.)
It was from a poem called For a Leader and he commended it to those who will lead in the 31st Dáil.
And he concluded with some lines from Raiftearaí, an file, for yesterday was St Brigid’s day and the start of spring.
As it transpired, Cowen’s contribution was the most thoughtful and measured of the afternoon.
Enda Kenny stuck a jarring note by delivering a speech which was far too long and combative for the day that was in it. There will be ample time to stick the boot into the Fianna Fáil government in the weeks to come.
But he too quoted blind Raiftearaí, for the day that was in it.
Eamon Gilmore was also in unforgiving election mode, although he finished on a lyrical high: “Today, on February 1st, let us leave our winter behind. Anois, teacht an Earraigh.”
Spring had arrived.
And the Dáil was sprung.
Minutes after Brian Cowen bowed out, his successor Micheál Martin was on the plinth, vowing to take the election fight to every community the length and breadth of the country. At the same time, Eamon Gilmore was on his way to party headquarters to brief the troops. Sinn Féin were laying out their stall and at Fine Gael election headquarters, Enda Kenny addressed the media.
Then the leaders set off on walkabouts around Dublin.
The Dáil returns on March 9th. It’s Ash Wednesday. But the fight is over for Cowen. And there was no disguising the sense of sadness when he told the Dáil: “Da fhad é an lá, titeann an oíche.”
No matter how long the day, night will fall.
It comes to all politicians in the end. They know it and it’s why they felt so genuinely for Brian Cowen yesterday.
For him, it was the end of the political day.