Miriam Lord: Enda fed up with flawed system where those who want to serve take abuse

On the day Irish householders began paying for their water, Dáil Éireann was still thrashing around in the political mud.

Somebody should have slapped a bile notice on the Taoiseach before he came into the chamber. He was in foul humour.

Having held his hands up on Tuesday and accepted responsibility for Whatever It Is, Enda was in no mood to answer any more questions.

“I’ve dealt with all of this, I’ve accepted responsibility, I’ve apologised to The Entire Process,” he huffed, thoroughly fed up with the Opposition for doing exactly what he would have done if he was in the same position.

After the Taoiseach’s statement we tried unsuccessfully to contact The Entire Process for its side of the story.

But sources indicated that The Entire Process had gone into hiding alongside Heather Humphreys, although there were hopes that the Minister for Arts might surface later, in time for Fine Gael’s much-anticipated parliamentary party ding-dong.

After the torrid week she has had, there was every chance that TDs and Senators might witness a Boolavogue moment, with Heather blazing after her humiliating experience.

But back to the Taoiseach, who was satisfied with his omnipology to The Entire Process and now wanted rid of the saga of John McNulty and his less than Imma-culate selection for the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Bilious eye

Enda fixed Micheál Martin with a bilious eye after the Fianna Fáil leader showed no sign of easing off on the issue.

“Because I’ll tell you one thing now,” he quivered, jabbing a peevish finger at the Fianna Fáil leader. “I’ll tell you, deputy Martin . . .”

A straight answer would have been a good start.

“I’m actually sick and tired. I’m actually sick and tired. I’m sick and tired now of a position where we have a flawed process for years in this country where people who want to give public service can be labelled as lackeys, hacks or cronies.”

Poor Enda. He looked like he needed more than a dose of milk of magnesia to cure what ailed him.

And then Simon Coveney comes on the lunchtime news to inform the nation that the Taoiseach was “sick to his stomach” all weekend over the cronyism controversy.

Could James Reilly not have given him something for this? We know that Dr Reilly is a noted stroke specialist, so he would have been just the man to minister to his boss as he battles to recover from the damaging consequences of a major political stroke.

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach – militantly contrite by this stage – boasted that his Government has put measures in place to ensure that episodes like Whatever It Was that happened around the appointment of McNulty to the board of Imma would never happen again.

And then he blamed the system. Because this “flaw in the system” (which is nothing to do with Government politicians handing out places on State boards like sweeties to party members and supporters) has “allowed people to be pilloried” for trying to do the State some service.

Volunteering

Enda was “sick” at the thought. People who want to do their duty by volunteering to sit on these boards are being “branded”. Whose fault is that?

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach had to clarify a statement he made on Tuesday about prospective Seanad candidate McNulty, whom he “interviewed” as part of the selection process.

Enda said the Donegal businessman had “expressed an interest” in getting on to a cultural board in the course of his “validation”.

But he had not said it to the Taoiseach during their interview, which turns out is different to his validation.

“This story is unravelling as it gets made up,” snorted Micheál, who was so happy to be on the right end of a story about political strokes that he did not seem to notice that Peter Mathews, now of the technical group, had taken up residence in the seat directly across the aisle from him.

The Taoiseach babbled on about the inner workings of Fine Gael and systems and internal sub-committees, while nervously clicking his pen.

He indicated that some unnamed party official may well have been responsible for coming up with the wheeze of putting the soon-to-be-ratified election candidate on to the Imma board. But, he stressed, nobody instructed the Minister to do the deed.

Humphreys, upon seeing the CV of the man behind the senior GAA teams in Kilcar and the Mace supermarket in Stranorlar, immediately recognised his value to the world of modern art and snapped him up.

Here was another aspect of this tangled story that some people couldn’t quite fathom.

Gerry Adams was one of them. Why, he wondered, had newly installed Minister Humphreys appointed more people to a board where the quota of nine was already filled?

Don’t blame Enda or Heather or the backroom strategists in Fine Gael for this. That’s all the fault of the arty crowd, apparently.

Nine members

You see, explained the Taoiseach, while the Government made a commitment that boards would be reduced from 15 to nine members, “the boards fought against it”. So nothing was formalised. So this means there were actually six vacancies on the board of Imma!

Oh, for God’s sake. Are you still with us?

When talent-spotter supreme Heather put McNulty on the board he didn’t know that he was going to be chosen as Fine Gael’s Seanad candidate. The Taoiseach believes these two events are not connected.

As for apparently mentioning that he wanted to be put on a board, he did this after his chat with Enda “when the Fine Gael personnel were dealing with the preparation of his CV”.

As you do.

“The point is, the system is flawed,” repeated Enda.

And he was sorry if he had confused the Opposition on the issue. Sick, tired and sorry.