The year has ended as it began, with the economy on the skids and Brian Cowen under pressure, but Lenihan has come out of it with a stronger reputation, writes MIRIAM LORD
ON THE FIRST sitting day of the new year, Brian Cowen delivered a statement of intent: “As long as I am running the Government, I will run the Government as I see fit, as I believe it, based on MY philosophy. I will run this country on the basis as I see it.”
He was angry. Needled by questions about his Government’s handling of our economic collapse, he lost his composure in the Dáil.
A safe pair of hands and a cool head in a crisis? People tuned in that evening, saw their Taoiseach blowing a gasket, and they despaired.
So 2009 began as it would end: with the economy on the skids, Dáil Éireann debating it, the Government promising action, its leader under pressure and social partnership out the window.
Cowen had placed all his eggs in the social partnership basket. “I believe in this approach. I believe in it,” he insisted in January, urging people to keep the faith. So the nation believed as well, pinning its hopes on partnership.
But when February dawned, the pay talks died. People were shocked at the news. It was a heavy blow for the Taoiseach.
He would make a statement to the Dáil. A national standstill for the live broadcast was rewarded with 10 disappointing, passionless, jargon filled minutes.
The Taoiseach tried to make amends, with feeling, on the evening news.
“Today, we start the fight back…there’s a whole lot of initiatives we can take, and a whole lot of things we can do.”
He promised that a worried nation would soon feel reassured. Displaying sharper instinct, the worried nation shrugged.
Then Biffo attended a private function in a posh hotel and took another run at a state-of-the-nation speech. By all accounts, this one was a tour de force. Many commentators, after months aching for Bertie's replacement to justify the big build-up they gave him, went overboard with praise. "It wasn't the Gettysburg Address," snorted Enda Kenny, introducing a touch of reality.
The banking fiasco trundled on, initially making Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan look as much of a mug as his commanding officer. When the long awaited PWC report was published, senior counsel Lenihan admitted to a gobsmacked Dáil that he hadn’t read the most important bits about Anglo Irish Bank. “It’s a very long report,” he lamely protested.
Oh, but everyone was feeling the pain. Brian Goggin, soon to depart the Bank of Ireland, said his salary “was substantially down” on the previous year, when his “disclosed compensation” had been about €2.9 million.
And now? “Less than €2 million,” he gloomily sniffed on the news as viewers wept into their tea. But Goggin bore up bravely: “Maybe we all got carried away in the euphoria.”
News broke of Anglo’s golden circle of 10 Commandos and the busted bank’s dodgy €7 billion arrangement with Irish Life and Permanent. At the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, Minister Noel Dempsey said bankers had committed “economic treason”. Worse than Cromwell, he bellowed, failing to mention the Government that allowed them wreak their havoc.
Then 120,000 people marched through the centre of Dublin in protest at public sector pay levies, while in Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, one Senor Bertie Ahern surfaced as a paid guest speaker at an economic conference, flogging “El Tigre Celta” and his part in making the Irish economy such a success.
There was more light relief in March. Minister Martin Cullen nearly fell out of an army helicopter when the door dropped off over Killarney.
Portraitgate turned a minor jape into an international news story when unflattering caricatures of Biffo in the buff mysteriously appeared in two Dublin art galleries. The pictures were tasteless but harmless. It was an ill-judged and ridiculously overwrought reaction from Government buildings that damaged Cowen.
Back in Leinster House, the Taoiseach refused to say that an emergency budget was on the way, although the dogs in the street knew it. Opposition finance spokespersons were summoned to Government Buildings to hear the full horror of our financial situation. Paul Gogarty of the Greens said cuts in education spending made him “want to vomit continuously”. Eventually, Cowen grudgingly conceded a mini-budget was imminent. “You’ll hardly start it off on April Fool’s Day,” huffed Enda Kenny.
“Not unless you’re around!” retorted Biffo.
In April, Pat Moylan, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, objected to Senator Nicky McFadden calling someone a “so and so”.
“I don’t want that type of language,” shuddered Pat. Eight months later, Paul Gogarty effed and blinded in the Dáil. The craven reaction of his fellow TDs afterwards was as dispiriting as GoGo’s pathetically inarticulate outburst.
Deputy Michael Ring was in flying form at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis. “I smell power! I smell pow-wer!” he roared to the delighted blueshirts.
Brian Lenihan, quietly growing in confidence, introduced the first of the year’s two Budgets. Bertie Ahern looked utterly dejected during the speech – but then, he stood to lose a major whack off his pension.
The National Assets Management Agency was introduced (Nama) and the thought of it continues to drive the country around the bend. Brian Cowen assured the Dáil it wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. Seven Junior Ministers were given the push, not that anyone noticed. John Gormley announced the scrappage, at last, of the e-voting machines.
Lenihan said our European partners were “amazed at our capacity to take pain”. Over in France, he gurgled, “you’d have riots if you tried to do this!”
George Lee of RTÉ exploded onto the political scene in May. He had joined Fine Gael and was running for election in Dublin South. The party couldn’t contain its glee at pulling off such a coup and spent the rest of the year parading him around like a prize bullock.
Two by-elections ran in tandem with the European and local elections, with Georgie Porgie the star of the show. Brian Cowen, who brought dourness to new levels during the campaign, had a crab named after him in Dingle.
At an emotionally charged EGM of the AIB, a frustrated shareholder lobbed two eggs at chairman Dermot Gleeson. “We drank too deeply from the national cup of confidence,” simpered a rueful Gleeson to the simmering hall of incandescent pensioners.
Fianna Fáil and the Greens were royally stuffed in the June elections. George romped home. He was joined by Maureen O’Sullivan, the quietly impressive Gregory group candidate who took the late Tony’s seat in Dublin Central. Among the vanquished were Maurice Ahern, De Udder Brudder, who failed miserably to win the seat despite high-profile support from De Little Brudder, Bertie.
RTÉ transmitted Questions and Answersfor the last time. An increasingly reclusive Taoiseach opted to be interviewed alone.
There was a chilling start to July for mollycoddled Government ministers when the British Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, revealed he had flown to Dublin on a scheduled flight with the great unwashed. On top of that, they had to worry about the imminent publication of An Bord Snip Nua’s report, designed to identify over €5 billion worth of cuts in the public sector.
Grandmaster snip, Colm McCarthy, reached his target effortlessly. Eamon Gilmore said the report was, “Ireland, viewed from the snug of Doheny and Nesbitt.” Minister Lenihan appealed for calm.
Trevor Sargent’s peas won first prize in the Rush and Lusk Horticultural Show.
Everyone went for a well deserved holiday in August, returning in September for a series of pre-season party tink-ins. Fine Gael’s was a happy affair until they heard former leader Alan Dukes had came out in support of Nama, which is strongly opposed by the party. “The banks are wetting themselves at the prospect of it going through,” said George Lee.
Protesting farmers tried to storm Fianna Fáil’s Athlone tink-in as the Paranoid Party’s private security roared, “Lock down! Lock down!” and scrambled for the doors. While Brian Cowen was inside telling the troops, “I need to do better,” hundreds of farmers were squaring up to baton-wielding gardaí outside.
And just to make things even more miserable for Biffo, the John O’Donoghue expenses controversy was gaining pace.
As the tink-in drew to a close, The Bull O’Donoghue was cornered in the parade ring at Listowel races where he declared, “as far as one regrets anything, I think that is an apology”.
Biffo tried to stay out of it: “I don’t want to get engaged in an interface with an independent constitutional position.” Ceann Comhairle O’Donoghue was out of a job by October after Eamon Gilmore stood up in the Dáil and told him the game was up.
The Bull didn’t go quietly, protesting the unfairness of his situation until the last. Wasn’t everyone in the Dáil legitimately at the expenses lark? It just so happened he was better at it. Captain Séamus Kirk took over the bridge.
The Lisbon Treaty saga finally ended with Ireland voting to ratify it at the second time of asking. But set against the country’s economic woes, the referendum was something of a sideshow. “Now, it’s business as usual, with a vengeance,” vowed Eamon Gilmore as soon as the result was announced.
Charlie McCreevy launched Bertie’s buke for him, and they both agreed the country was “in safe hands” when they were in charge.
Then Enda Kenny surprised everyone, including most of his own parliamentary party, when he announced he will move to abolish the Seanad if he becomes Taoiseach. Senators bristled with hurt and indignation, but were overjoyed with the attention.
Nama rumbled on and Trevor’s parsley (three sprigs) won first prize at The Naul and District Horticultural Show.
IndaKinny and his economic team embarked on a nationwide tour in November, hawking George Lee around the hotel ballrooms of Ireland to charm potential voters. Maíre Geoghegan Quinn landed the plum job of EU Commissioner while the Progressive Democrats became the Defunct Democrats and their name was removed from the official register of political parties.
Gathering storm clouds on the industrial relations front saw more protest marches and a one-day public service strike. Union leader David Begg declared the Government’s campaign of vilification against public service workers had been so successful that “you would as soon admit your grandfather was a member of the Black and Tans than say you are in the public service”.
Meanwhile, with much of the country under water, the Taoiseach made belated efforts to visit victims of the winter floods. His well-intentioned but awkward attempt to engage with the people proved another public relations disaster when he refused to visit the home of an upset householder because he had to rush back to Dublin for a meeting.
To compound his woes, Cowen continued to perform poorly in the Dáil, remaining remote and inaccessible, while his Minister for Finance’s star continued to soar. After that shaky start, Lenihan – with those doleful Panda eyes, willingness to talk and reassuring air of competence and confidence – became the undisputed star of the Cabinet and the media’s darling. The Taoiseach’s torrid year ended with the collapse of social partnership and rows with the embittered unions. Lenihan steered through a savage (for some) budget, to the approval of most commentators. If it was a year of brickbats for Cowen, the plaudits piled up for Lenihan.
Yet, in a cruel, almost Shakespearean twist, the year ended with bad news – insensitively disclosed by TV3 on St Stephen’s Day – concerning Lenihan’s health. Politics often blurs the public, the personal and the private, and that’s how it is now, as 2009 draws to a close.
