Miriam Lord: The Dáil end-of-term awards

Best Minister

After the Dáil was dissolved on February 3rd, we had to wait until May 18th for its first full working day. That doesn’t give much time to evaluate the Ministers. In this sort of situation, Michael Noonan always seems to get the nod by default. But he didn’t have a great election, failing to kill off questions over “fiscal space”.

Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney are busy pretending not to notice that a vacancy for the leadership is on the horizon. For a job well planned and well done, Heather Humphreys gets the gong for her assured stewardship of the 1916 centenary commemorations.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 4

Heather Humphreys: the Minister for Arts wins our best Minister award for not botching up the 1916 celebrations. Photograph: Aidan Crawley

When she was appointed Minister for the Arts two years ago, the project was behind schedule and lacked direction. Heather got stuck in, met all the parties involved and demanded results. This was a delicate operation with a long list of interested parties waiting to be insulted or outraged if it wasn’t handled properly. What we got was a nationwide programme of events, with lots of community involvement and a special weekend in the capital that will be remembered for decades.

Best politician

Going on results, there can only be one winner: Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin. In the space of one spell in Opposition, he took his party from the depths of opprobrium to the most popular in the country. How much of this is down to him and how much to the public’s short memory is a matter for debate.

Once the election was over, he played a clever game, held his nerve and ended up with a tasty deal – power without all the responsibility. By agreeing to “facilitate” a minority Fine Gael-led Government, he is, in effect, the extra man at Enda’s Cabinet table. Perhaps they should put an empty chair there, as a reminder.

Scariest moment

This award goes to

Conor Lenihan

, who was back after spending a number of years working in Russia. The former Fianna Fáil TD was on punditry duty for RTÉ’s Seán O’Rourke during the election count.

As the results came in and voters began to wonder what sort of Dáil they had foisted upon themselves, Lenihan was struck by a thought (he wasn’t injured). “Remember the ad: ‘Don’t let Fianna Fáil back to haunt you?’ Well . . .” he said, putting on a scary voice and waving his arms over his head, “we’re ba-aack!”

Darwin award

Danny Healy-Rae for his contribution to the evolution of the political species and passionate denial of climate change. “What I’m saying to you is patterns of climate change took place regardless and mankind, I don’t believe, hadn’t any hand, act or part in it . . . We had the Ice Age and the whole country was covered in ice. There was one year particularly the sun didn’t shine at all, at all.”

It’s all down to God.

Support for Danny came earlier in the year when the Taoiseach told the Dáil, after large parts of the country disappeared under floodwater, “I am not God. I cannot predict the extent of rainfall.”

Biggest disappointment

The Social Democrats. The new party began the year with three TDs – all solid Dáil performers – and big ambitions, but failed to return any new members to the Dáil. Gary Gannon came closest in Dublin Central, which may gain a seat when the constituencies are redrawn. Róisín Shortall, Catherine Murphy and

Stephen Donnelly

promised much, but the party seems lost among the mixed bag of Independent groupings fighting for space in a crowded market.

Violet Elizabeth Bott award

Step forward Alan “Big Bawls” Kelly, who threw his AK-47 out of the pram after failing to convince his six fellow TDs to make him their leader.

Nicknamed "Big Bawls" after he reportedly cried at a parliamentary party meeting when accused of leaking to the media, Kelly did a Violet Elizabeth Bott (of Just William fame) and threamed and threamed 'til he was thick on the day he was re-elected, frightening the horses in Tipperary with his pumped up act of celebration.

Then, when he wasn’t considered for the leadership, he threamed and threamed until he was so thick he didn’t turn up for Brendan Howlin’s celebration. But he’s over it now.

Gerry Adams longevity award

Enda Kenny

. Still hangin’ in, with that coveted second consecutive term in power as FG leader in his back pocket. He’s had a terrible start to the new Dáil after a poor election. But the ship seems to be steadying for him, despite some enthusiastic young backbenchers trying to help him out the door. By the way, we never got to see the election poster featuring Enda that Fine Gael members deemed too awful to put on the lamp posts. It didn’t see the light of day, but if it looked anything like our unflattering photo of the Taoiseach looking utterly fed-up after a torrid year so far (above), we can see why.

I Couldn’t Possibly Comment award

Winston Churchtown, who goes by the title of Lord Ross. The Minister for Transport, who is not the leader of the Independent Alliance because it is not a party, was asked before the election about possible ministerial jobs in the offing.

“We haven’t decided about that, we haven’t made any decision about that at all, ah, and I think that will probably, em, that’ll be a decision which will be made – if it’s appropriate – at the time, by the people elected, ah, so, there’s that, but look, there are two points of view on that. I don’t think we’re sold on either.

“One is, yah, is get into cabinet and do what can be done to ensure that you get your policies implemented and your priorities put in place, and the other is that you’re better staying outside and not be captured and becoming an insider in the cabinet, which has happened to so many parties in the past, and, you know, people got in there, they’ve taken the goodies and succumbed to temptation and that’s something we will have to consider, certainly.” So the alliance considered it for weeks and weeks, and Winston Churchtown, having wrestled with his conscience, walked away with a senior ministry and a big smile on his face. Sidekick Finian McGrath played air guitar in the chamber after he was given a junior ministry and a high-chair at Cabinet.

Most attempts to propose Enda for taoiseach

Four-in-a-Row Rock.

Noel Rock

, new FG TD for Dublin North-West, who delivered the same speech four times until Fianna Fáil took pity on him and put Enda back in business.

Best use of irony

A tie between

Joan Burton

and Micheál Martin. The Dáil cracked up when Joan, who was never a model of clarity or brevity when tánaiste, shouted repeatedly at her successor

Frances Fitzgerald

: “Can you answer the question?” And there’s Micheál Martin in the Dáil, accusing the Taoiseach of “trying to spin and control everything”.

Overstatement of the session

“Wars have been and will be fought over water. It is not a commodity that can just be treated the same as any other. We can live for up to 70 days without food, as hunger strikers in the North and elsewhere have proved, but we cannot survive for more than three or five days without water.” That was Bríd Smith of the AAA/PBP talking about water charges again.

Flushed with success

This is shared by Leo Varadkar and Finian McGrath. Leo said he is not sh***ing a brick over the looming leadership election. “No matter what I say or do for the past six months some people are linking [it] to the leadership of Fine Gael and I am just waiting on the day when I sit on the toilet and some commentator somewhere decides that is part of some strategy.”

Finian, meanwhile, was being love-bombed by senior Fine Gael figures during the government negotiations. “I can’t even go to the jacks without being followed by a Minister.”

Speedy McGrathlez award

Mattie McGrath. The Tipperary Independent, who didn’t stay the pace in the negotiations for government, was annoyed because Enda and his team wanted to seal a deal or otherwise after 10 weeks of talking. “They’re rushin’ us!” he repeatedly complained.

Tweet of the session

This, from Independent Denis Naughten: “Is this an omen?” He wrote it while quartered in a ministerial office during the government negotiations. And it was an omen. Denis is now Minister for Communications.

Best dressed

Tom Neville, new Fine Gael TD for Limerick County, models an extensive line in snug-fitting three-piece suits, accessorised with billowing silk hankies. Niamh Smyth, Fianna Fáil’s new deputy for Cavan-Monaghan, is running a close second thanks to her eye-catching shoe selection. Buttons, bows, polka dots, sparkles and very high heels – she’s the Theresa May of the 32nd Dáil.

Best suggestion

The leader of the Green Party talked about love in the Dáil. The lads thought he was mad.

Eamon Ryan

was talking in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting as TDs were delivering expressions of sympathy. He gave his own version of the prayer spoken at the beginning of business every day: “‘That every word and work of ours’ may start with and end with love . . . We stand for love in this House against the evil we saw at the weekend.” You could see by the look on the lads’ faces that they think he’s mad.

Was it such an outrageous thing to say?