High drama in Dáilton Abbey as respect urged for FG bluebloods

ONE SIMPLY can’t get good staff in Leinster House these days.

It seems some of the “below-stairs” people just don’t know their place.

But one Fine Gael Senator wants the winds of modernity to blow through the great house on Kildare Street.

Leinster House is not Downton Abbey,says Paul Bradford. Fine Gael should be promoting a spirit of "togetherness" and "co-operation" instead of a return to the sort of master and servant relationship depicted in Upstairs Downstairs.

Mr Bradford is not happy that party staffers have been told to observe the correct protocol when addressing parliamentarians in public: they must favour members with their correct title.

The issue arose at a recent FG staff information meeting. On Monday, the party administrator e-mailed a summary of the meeting to TDs, Senators and staff.

The first item concerned the protocol for addressing members: “Staff are at liberty to use first name terms, if appropriate, within offices. However, in the public areas of the House staff should address members with their correct title (Deputy/ Senator), as they may be in the company of business people/ constituents/representatives of public/private organisations.”

The former TD for Cork East, who is married to Minister of State Lucinda Creighton, circulated a reply yesterday. “I appreciate that Downton Abbey has become a must-see TV drama for many, but I am rather surprised that its last century ethos appears set to invade the parliamentary party!” he wrote in an e-mail to his colleagues and their staff. “I am referring, of course, to the ‘Good morning Deputy, Hello Senator’ regulations which have been outlined. I’d like the staff to know that I can always be addressed on first name terms as I have been during all my years in Leinster House.

"A simple Paul is good enough for me!" He concluded: "I would have thought at a time when our party is challenged by the gravest economic crisis in history, our message and image should be one of co-operation and togetherness throughout society and not a return to the practice of Upstairs Downstairs."

Paul conjures up a simply fascinating picture. Is Taoiseach Enda Kenny our modern political version of Downton's Lord Grantham? Does this make Frances Fitzgerald his fragrant Lady Grantham? And still with the aristocrats in our Upstairs Downstairsparliament, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore must surely be Sir Ralph and Minister Joan Burton his Lady Bellamy.

Enda Kenny’s chief adviser Mark Kennelly would be his faithful butler Carson while Eamon’s man Mark Garret would be his Mr Hudson.

Heaven forbid if the hired help in Dáilton Abbey were to get ideas above their station. The Leinster House Quality are getting enough trouble from the lower orders as it is. And don’t forget to bow when they pass.