DÁIL SKETCH:AT LONG last, yes. It arrived. The moment when we could finally look that question in the eye and answer in the affirmative. Was it for this? Yes, it was. The men of 1916 died for this. The moment had arrived, and it was mechanically propelled.
There was great excitement yesterday morning among our newly elected betters. Notification was discreetly dispatched. Cameras primed to capture the new dawn. Otherwise known as “the bus”. Oh, the symbolism of it.
Wednesday morning in Dublin, and half the Cabinet travelled by bus to Arbour Hill for the annual Easter Rising commemoration ceremony. It was, apparently, “a military bus”. Not only did they arrive by this novel mode of transport, but they left by it too. We have entered a new era.
How the President managed to keep her composure we will never know. It was a great day for Ireland.
And the good news continued. Big Phil Hogan took to the courtyard of Government Buildings to announce a raft of political reforms. He chose to stand beside the lawn, with the fountain behind him as it ostentatiously didn’t spew any water. For this is a new era.
Phil was very determined. Fewer Dáil deputies. Time limit on byelections. Reduction of presidential election spending limits. “A Hogan-mander?” He scoffed at the very notion that he would attempt to influence the consultative process on redrawing constituencies. For this is a new era, with buses and all.
As he spoke, two very large and very shiny black cars drove in around the cobbles and under the arch near to where he was doing his thing. The journalists had their backs turned to this arrival, facing Big Phil.
The cars stopped and the doors opened and a plethora of Government advisers and civil servants hopped out, along with a fair-haired man wearing a shocking pink tie. A door opened in the archway – we never saw it before – and the man in the pink tie nipped swiftly out of the Merc and into the opening. It was over in an instant. But not before we recognised Enda, in the pink.
Back from Arbour Hill, like a reverse Cinderella, his marvellous Cabinet coach having turned into a horrible Merc when the clock chimed midday. Busy man yesterday, was the Taoiseach. After the Easter Rising ceremony, he had to hotfoot it back to Leinster House for Leaders’ Questions, and after that he was off to New York where he would “declare Ireland open for business”.
You can’t say that enough times. Enda certainly can’t.
He had an unhappy Leaders’ Questions, possibly his worst since becoming Taoiseach. It didn’t help that he insulted Joe Higgins along the way by insinuating that he had supported Osama bin Laden. It was a thoughtless remark and Enda had to issue a swift apology. But he managed to insult a nonplussed Higgins yet again in the course of it.
In taking back his words, the Taoiseach called the leader of the Socialist Party “a good Christian”. He did it with a smirk. Everyone knows that Joe is a devout atheist.
Kenny’s tactic of answering all questions – no matter what they might be about – by ranting about the last government is growing increasingly tiresome.
His administration is squeaky clean but Enda “my other bus is a Merc” Kenny still feels the pain.
At least he takes some consolation from the fact that Fianna Fáil caused it. Actually, he doesn’t just take consolation, he basks in it. Because of their actions, Kenny can do nothing to ease chronic cases of pain, even if they are happening on his watch. Until he fixes the economy, everything else must wait.
That could take a very long time, which is not good news for the many people in dire need of a helping hand. Take those communities living in awful conditions because the promised regeneration of their flat complexes has fallen through. (RTÉ’s Prime Time did a big item on their plight on Tuesday night and Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald raised it during Leaders’ Questions.) Mary Lou asked what the Coalition intended to do. She was quite specific. Enda wasn’t.
In a lengthy reply, he focused on the Fianna Fáil leader, choosing to continue his attack on the previous government’s management of the country’s finances. “You’re answering me,” Mary Lou reminded him. Finally, Enda swivelled and faced her.
But the sniping between the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders didn’t stop. It was like Mary Lou didn’t exist. “I must say it is getting a little tedious in this House that when a straight question is put to the Taoiseach, he runs for cover behind the record of his predecessors,” she said in exasperation.
Of course, it suits Kenny to argue with Micheál Martin because he can trot out the line about how his government ruined the country and how his Government is trying to fix it.
Move on, Enda. And a bit more respect for Mary Lou.
