Miriam Lord: promise of reform stays locked in Cabinet

It was wall to wall Aer Lingus in Leinster House. The plinth was badly congested all afternoon as an endless queue of TDs and Senators from north Co Dublin and the Shannon region taxied up to the microphones with their misgivings over the proposed sale of the airline.

There wasn't any sign of Michael Lowry, after he tipped the wink to his old mucker Enda about a lovely girl – "not bad-looking either" – he thought would be an adornment to the board of the National Transport Authority. Not only that, as he informed the Taoiseach in a handwritten note last week, but the lovely girl in question is "bright" and "intelligent".

But Lowry wasted his ink. He also wasted his time. Sure doesn’t everyone know there is no political interference any more in appointments to State boards?

In the wake of last October's Nultygate debacle, when Fine Gael tried to boost a potential senator's credentials by sticking him on one, Brendan Howlin announced a revised system for filling vacancies.

Unless the candidate is up for re-appointment, Ministers now have to choose from a shortlist of candidates provided to them by the public appointments service, with all applications going through a dedicated website. So there’s no point in drawing the Taoiseach’s attention to any candidate, whether or not she might (as in the case of Lowry’s former press adviser) be hoping for reappointment to a board after serving a commendable first term.

Unless, of course, the Independent TD for Tipperary North, who was a high-flying Fine Gael minister 20 years ago until he dirtied his bib, knows any different. He certainly knows the system, and the political ropes.

At least Lowry had the good sense to hand his bovine note to a Dáil usher, who conveyed it across the chamber floor. That way he didn’t have to suffer carpet burns to his knuckles by standing up and making the trip himself.

Still, it’s a pity he wasn’t seen around Leinster House yesterday. All the girls were disappointed. They love to watch him pass and they sigh: “Hasn’t Michael got a lovely neck?”

Enda has a lovely neck too. He's quite the adornment. Or more of an embellishment. The word cropped up a few times during Questions to the Taoiseach when Micheál Martin, Gerry Adams and Joe Higgins wanted to know about cabinet confidentiality. Specifically, a paragraph in the Fine Gael/Labour programme for government which, after an earnest preamble about transparency and open government, promised to "legislate on the issue of cabinet confidentiality".

“We will radically overhaul the way Irish politics and Government work,” promised the incoming coalition. “Government is too centralised and unaccountable. We believe that there must also be a real shift in power from the State to the citizen.”

Well-thumbed

With his well-thumbed copy of the programme in hand, the Fianna Fáil leader was happy to read out and remind Enda of the relevant passage.“These were the heady days of 2011,” he recalled. “Will the Taoiseach explain what was meant by ‘we will legislate on the issue of cabinet confidentiality’ in the programme for government.”

The Taoiseach wasn’t too keen to oblige. Micheál was very puzzled. Why did Fine Gael and Labour insert this? “Can you enlighten me in any shape or form . . . or did you not have the foggiest notion?”

Because as Micheál recalls, there was a lot of talk about reforming politics. But nothing has been done at all about cabinet confidentiality, something which Labour, in particular, railed against for years.

“I’d say it was a good intention,” replied Enda, eventually. To repeal cabinet confidentiality? Hold a referendum, or something? Eh, no.

“The intention was not to remove the constitutional provision or amend it. It was probably to embellish the fact that people should keep confidential matters discussed at cabinet.”

So, it seemed Kenny and Eamon Gilmore and their ministers stuck a paragraph into their own programme for government to stop themselves spilling the beans.

“Now the Taoiseach is saying the Labour Party was conspiring with him to legislatively reinforce and re-embed cabinet confidentiality,” marvelled Micheál.

Joe Higgins was fascinated. “The Taoiseach has enlightened us on an entirely new departure in Irish politics. He has now cast establishment party leaders as gifted artists who shower embellishments on their citizenry instead of a solid plan . . . Can the Taoiseach share with us what other embellishments are contained in this very weighty document?”

Enda responded with his best phrase of the year so far: “It is not a case of showering the citizenship with embellishments.”

But Joe’s mind was made up.

“It’s not every day that a Taoiseach would come into this House and vindicate the view of those who think that everybody in Government is a shower of . . . eh – it’s a word that begins with a P and finishes with an S – artists . . . even though you used the word ‘embellishments’.”

Enda shouted: “Philosophers!”

Richard Boyd Barrett shook his head: “There are very few of those.”