Labour’s heavyweights swat the handful of questions buzzing around their heads
WATCHING 20 JOURNALISTS plus a mad wasp buzz around Eamon Gilmore’s head as he stood outside a country hotel, trying to bat away accusations that he was – allegedly — a bit of a ditherer at the Cabinet table, an old question recurred. Why are we here? Is this all there is? Shouldn’t we all be buzzing around Bani Walid at a real war?
Lunchtime and the car park of the swish Mount Wolseley Hotel in Tullow was alive with car doors banging as Ministers, TDs and Senators hauled themselves back from holidays to a “special parliamentary party meeting”. That’s the kind of “party meeting” also known as a “think-in”, the sort that can end in tears, tweets and recrimination, as Fianna Fáil knows too well. “Garglegate” ring a bell?
Lessons have been learned. If everyone stayed off the drink and on message, it could only be a proud showcase for the fact that the Labour parliamentary party would outnumber the media for the first time in ages. Gilmore had already dealt with the controversial “Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way” election comment in an Irish Times interview. “Chapel gate language,” he called it. “Language that is used to simplify what are at time complex issues.”
So Chapelgate was out of the way. When the most noteworthy occurrence of the day thus far is the sheepish arrival of a well-known journalist in a deep purple suit and canary yellow Honda, you can bet there’s potential for trouble. Thus, at a pre-lunch “media opportunity”, the first question put to Gilmore was about an Irish Independent splash, in which unnamed “fellow Ministers” accused him of failing to make an impression at the Cabinet table.
The question was hardly out of left field so he was ready for it. “I saw that report and I don’t accept that any Minister said what was quoted in that article,” he said. Twenty journalistic minds computed the sentence simultaneously. Even the wasp went silent. Was there a pattern developing here? First Alan Shatter. Then Leo Varadkar. Now Eamon Gilmore. All from a Cabinet only a few months old, all launching frontal attacks on the integrity of respected journalists.
Ironically, the same journalist’s report had included a line that Alan Shatter had gained respect from fellow Ministers for his attack on the media. Would there be no end to it so?
“It’s ground hurling,” shrugged the journalist later. Part of the cut and thrust. They were standing by their story of course. Tullow is hardly Bani Walid but maybe after Hotelfrontdoorgate, it’s time to start packing the Kevlar jackets with the laptops.
For the record, Gilmore laughed when asked again if he was a bit quiet in Cabinet. “No. I’m very happy with the effectiveness of the Labour Party in this Government. This isn’t about my performance. This is about the performance of the Government. We have a job of work to do.”
Not for the first time yesterday would he mention how they were turning the economic situation around, restoring the country’s reputation, and best of all had been successful in renegotiating the interest rates – “something people said couldn’t be done”.
All the same, he never denied he was a bit quiet . . .
Then it began to rain and Emmet Stagg was first through the door. “I’m a sunshine socialist. When it starts raining I come inside,” he grinned, standing beside Brendan Howlin, who said he wasn’t remotely hurt by the criticism of his ministering so far.
Water off a duck’s back? “Compleeeetly. We knew the scale of what we had to do. I’ve spent six months establishing a new government department. Not easy. Changing the culture. We’ve done an incredible amount of groundwork and need to deliver on that . . .We’re involved in a process to restore the economic sovereighty of Ireland – nothing less than that. I would have hoped that journalism and journalists would take a stake in our country and want to be objective in doing that. I’m sure many of the same people gave A ratings to Bertie Ahern as he led us to ruin . . . ”
As they got down to the serious business of the afternoon, morose-looking delegates rustled sweet papers, and it was notable that most of the women had congregated together in the front row. Invited to join them, Róisín Shortall politely declined: “No, I’m not blonde.”
Later a TD – whom we’ve decided not to name – took advantage of the coffee break between “Towards Recovery: The Economy and the Budget” and “Jobs Initiatives: Pathways to Employment” to haul in his overnight bag. So what did he think so far? “Ah it’s nothing we haven’t heard before . . . just being said in a few different ways”.