Having had his fingers burnt on the Ray Burke controversy over the two £30,000 donations, the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fail party are steering well clear of the allegations that builder, Thomas Gilmartin, gave P. Flynn a £50,000 cheque intended for the party in the late 1980s.
The official line is that this matter is being investigated by the Flood Tribunal.
Official Fianna Fail sources are saying privately, however, that they have no recollection of such a cheque being received from P. Flynn.
Commissioner Flynn, meanwhile, is refusing to take, or answer, any questions clarifying his position. He told a Sunday newspaper a fortnight ago that "No", he did not receive a cheque for £50,000 from Mr Gilmartin intended for Fianna Fail and then, last weekend, he claimed his answer was "misinterpreted".
His spokeswoman in Brussels, Barbara Nolan, who is a Commission employee rather than a political appointee, has been doing her very best to stay out of the controversy. At the official Commission briefing last Monday, however, she was finally forced to come out with an official statement on the EU Commissioner's behalf saying that he would deal with all matters at the tribunal, if required to do so.
Slightly reminiscent, Quidnunc thinks, of the position that Dan Mulhall, former press officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs, found himself in when questions were posed about his Minister, Ray Burke, about a year ago.
Mulhall, who is the new Consul General in Edinburgh, had his own distinctive way of dealing with the questions. "I am the spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs - not the builders of North Dublin" was how he put it to a journalist on one occasion.
The timing of the whole controversy may not be particularly good for P. Flynn. He would be interested, we hear, in being re-appointed to the new Commission which takes office in January, 2000. The nomination will come up for decision about the middle of next year.
That's reel diplomacy
Canada's new ambassador to Ireland, Ron Irwin, joined a band within 10 days of arriving here. A former Liberal Minister for Indian and Northern Affairs in the previous federal government, Irwin was appointed less than three weeks ago to the Dublin post by the prime minister, Jean Chretien. He did not contest the last election, but worked for 14 months as an adviser to the prime minister.
Ten days after his arrival in Dublin last month Irwin and his wife Margaret left for home to join the current State visit to Canada by the President, Mrs McAleese. He said he had long ago played in a band - keyboard and accordion - and was invited to join a band in Dublin which plays on Monday nights in the Man of War in Swords. He submitted himself to an audition at the embassy residence in Killiney where he and band members Paddy Dorrance and Brendan Leahy, two of the best musicians he ever met, drank beer, talked and played over three hours. He passed with flying colours. And what sort of music will he be playing on Monday nights? Jigs and reels, he said.
Irwin has family connections with Cavan and his wife's mother's family were Bradys from Co Mayo.
A woman's way
At the State dinner in Government House in Ottawa on Monday, the President, Mrs McAleese amused her audience with her observations on women's suitability for high office. She was taken with the story of Emily Murphy, she said, a well-known journalist in Edmonton in the early decades of this century, who led a campaign for female magistrates. As a result, although not a lawyer, she was made the first female magistrate in Canada. "When challenged, she defended the appointment on the very reasonable grounds that rearing children gives one considerable experience in judging cases of "false pretences, assault, incitement, breach of peace, cruelty to animals, cheating at play, loitering, false evidence, trespass and many other offences." It went down a treat with the distinguished guests.
One party or another
Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader, John Taylor is about to miss his second successive party conference. Last year he missed the conference through illness. This year, the conference clashes with his daughter's wedding. His special adviser, Steven King, says that the UUP conference is unusually late this year - October 24th in Derry - a city known to King, of course, as Londonderry. The wedding date was set before the conference date and Taylor is putting family before party.
De Valera wish
If Sinead Behan wins the Cork Cork South Central by-election for Fianna Fail she will be, at 29, the party's youngest female member - just six months younger than Donegal's Cecilia Keaveney. The Behans are an old-line Fianna Fail family in Cork. Sinead was named after Eamon de Valera's wife. When she was born, Sinead de Valera called to visit her. Twenty-nine years ago, she inscribed on the baby's birth certificate: "I hope to see you enter the world of politics".
Landing a windfall
Despite our enthusiasm for all things European, Quidnunc has learned that Ireland will be one of the last countries to introduce the single European currency - the euro - on December 31st next. The technical details of the introduction were hammered out at the ECOFIN meeting in Vienna last month. Finland will join at midnight East European time, most of the rest of Europe will join an hour later, while Ireland and Portugal will join two hours after Finland. The British, of course, won't join at all, but will have the consolation of enjoying the fruits of the most outlandish pieces of property speculation in Irish history. Glencairn, the British ambassador's residence in south Co Dublin, is on the market and may fetch £35 million from a housing developer. It was bought in 1956 for £35,000.
Uncorking a bit of a fray
Fianna Fail is denying it furiously of course, but the three sitting TDs in Cork South Central are distinctly unenthusiastic about adding a fourth to their number, in the person of Sinead Behan. The three TDs are Micheal Martin, Minister for Education, who is her director of elections, John Dennehy and Batt O'Keeffe. Martin has more appetite for the fray than the other two since he is the only Cork city TD in the Cabinet and has a proven vote-getting ability.
Fianna Fail's Tom Reddy rejects the speculation that not all the sitting TDs in Cork South Central are pulling out all the stops for their candidate, Behan. Despite his responsibilities in Education and around the Cabinet table, Reddy says Martin is a most effective director of elections. "We finished a meeting in the Fianna Fail offices in Grand Parade at 12.45 a.m. and the Minister was on the early morning flight to Dublin for a Cabinet meeting - he has incredible energy."
So far, both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael report, the predominant issue on the doorsteps is Cork's traffic. There seems to be general agreement that the contest will ultimately lie between Fine Gael's Simon Coveney and Sinead Behan. But, says one seasoned observer: "I wrote off Toddy O'Sullivan [Lab] twice before and I was wrong both times."
Speculation that Fine Gael's Sylvester Cotter might run as an Independent against Coveney is wide of the mark. A Fine Gael spokesman said: "I wouldn't say he's out canvassing for Coveney, but neither is he acting against him."
Well versed for Canada
David Andrews flew back from Canada with Second Secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Gallagher, for his meeting on Thursday with Paddy MacKernan, the department's secretary general.
It had been intended that Liz O'Donnell and MacKernan would join the President, Mrs Aleese, for the second leg of her North American visit. However, political sources now say MacKernan will not travel, being somewhat miffed by the implication in Andrews's Dail statement last week that he (MacKernan) had rather too enthusiastic an appetite for travel. It's a pity that the Canadians will be denied one of the Limerick diplomat's party pieces, a Yeats parody that begins: "Under bare Ben Kiely's bed. . ."
Night of long knives and forks
`Patrician" is a word often used to describe David Andrews. It indicates that he is tall and bears himself well, but there is also conveys just a hint of arrogance and a lack of humour. The last bit is not true. After Charlie Haughey became taoiseach he invited Andrews, Martin O'Donoghue and their respective spouses to dinner in Kinsealy. The two men were puzzled, as they were both firmly of the George Colley camp, but, out of curiosity, they decided to go.
The dinner was difficult. Charlie was at his most monosyllabic and the conversation ebbed more than flowed. Towards the end of the meal, Charlie asked Andrews what he thought of the cutlery, which was engraved C.J.H. Andrews said: "Did you nick it from the Central Hotel?" The evening grew livelier after that.
Charlie's angels
It was unfortunate that Charlie Haughey had to ruin his 73th birthday by making an appearance before the District Court this week. However, he was somewhat cheered by the fact that he got 33 per cent more birthday cards than last year. He celebrated with his wife and family. He does not go out as much as he used to: he walks with a cane and has had to abandon the early morning canter on Portmarnock strand. A loyal coterie of friends include Arthur Gibney, P.J. Mara, Brian Dennis, accountant Des Peelo, Standish Collen and his solicitor, Ivor Fitzpatrick - all regular visitors to Kinsealy. Friends say he called Helmut Kohl last week to commiserate with him.
Movable feast
The Anglo-Irish secretariat at Maryfield - aka The Bunker - is due to find a new home in December. David Trimble would like it to be located in Britain, a development which might placate members of his party who believe the Belfast Agreement is a sell-out to Dublin. The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, however, is insisting that it remain in Northern Ireland. Said one Belfast journalist: "Wherever it goes, I hope they bring the same chef. Visitors to the Bunker are invariably impressed by the cuisine."