MIRIAM LORD'S WEEK

Senator Daly proves he's no loafer . . . Taoiseach's oriental reflections . . . Hoctor faces wrath of pensioners . . . Young guns make their mark . . . TDs running, but not for office . . .

Daly's got sole

FIANNA FÁIL Senator Mark Daly has been at the centre of an international hostage drama after an unnamed militant group kidnapped his shoes. Unable to go public, his two-month ordeal finally came to an end when they were returned intact on Thursday.

"I stood by my principles and refused to negotiate," a delighted Daly told us after an emotional reunion with his tan loafers, left by persons unknown at the security desk of Leinster House.

Daly was a Fianna Fáil observer at the Democratic Convention in August when he entrusted a plastic bag containing the shoes to some Irish journalists attending the event. The parcel went missing, and a worried Mark was shocked to receive a threatening e-mail upon his return to Kenmare with the message: "We have your shoes, Senator." It was accompanied by a photograph of the tan loafers surrounded by Obama/Biden posters and flying the American flag.

The photo was the first of a number e-mailed to the traumatised Senator, showing his shoes in a variety of locations around the United States. They included chilling photos of the loafers in a theme-park with Spongebob Squarepants, at a John McCain rally, beside Niagra Falls and standing on a US mailbox. The final e-mail came from JFK airport. It read "Where will I go next?" But Mark never blinked and the kidnappers cracked.

"I don't think they were professionals. They sent a ransom note, but it had no conditions, which I found a bit strange." However, it is understood that Newstalk reporter Chris Donoghue, who was in Denver for the convention and travelled America afterwards, acted as mediator. Donoghue, who briefly returned to Dublin this week, has been signed up again by the station to report on the forthcoming presidential elections. "Getting those shoes back has been the highlight of my week," says Daly. "I was very afraid that a tongue might be sent in the post." Senator Daly doesn't think the shoes will need counselling. "I bought them in Quill's of Kenmare and Quill's shoes are very resilient."

Cowen looks east

Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe nobly stepped into the breach as leader of the Irish trade mission to China this week when his Taoiseach was unavoidably delayed. However, one or two of his Chinese hosts had trouble with the genial Corkman's name, extending the warmest of welcomes to "Mr O'Coffee".

(Just as well Batt didn't hear what the students were calling him on Wednesday.) Brian Cowen finally arrived on Wednesday, fresh from redrafting the medical cards scheme. At a press conference with the Irish journalists covering the trip, the Taoiseach wistfully recalled how there used to be a convention that only international matters were raised by the meeja when Government representatives travelled abroad. But that's out the window these day, and Cowen got a right grilling over the pitfalls in his Budget.

He said he was confident his government would weather the storm.

But he appeared on the news on Thursday, lost in a carved wooden chair that was too big for him, looking like he'd just had a feed of chicken feet and ducks' tongues, washed down by snake wine. Bilious might best describe how his mood came across.

Happily, he was a big hit with students at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. That institution was founded at the instigation of the late Zhou Enlai, long-serving Chinese premier, and Cowen quoted his famous response when, nearly 200 later, he was asked to assess the impact of the French Revolution: "It's too early to say." Judgment on Cowen might not be delayed as long as that.

'Proctor? Foster?'

The lesser-spotted Marys were sent into the Dáil on Wednesday night to play their part in the longest act of contrition ever recited by an Irish government.

With the howls of pensioners still haunting their heads, they faced packed Opposition benches. Behind them, seats that should have been occupied by Fianna Fáil colleagues were deserted.

Ministers of State Máire Hoctor and Mary Wallace didn't even attempt to make their contributions sound convincing. One after the other, they stood and read prepared scripts as quickly as they could. Their delivery was flat and monotonous and they rarely lifted their heads.

It was a dispiriting sight, and the many elderly people in the public gallery watched their diffident display with dismay.

Still, at least there was some good news for Máire. Everyone in the chamber knew who she was, and for those above in the gallery who may have been at a loss to identify this woman, her name appeared on the television monitor while she spoke.

Máire didn't fare so well out on the street earlier in the day during the medical card protest.

The public address system worked far better on one side of the platform than the other, leaving many demonstrators outside Leinster House straining to hear the speeches and introductions.

"Máire who?" the OAPs asked each other, when Hoctor appeared. "Proctor? Foster? Hoctor? Who is she? Where's she from?" Very few of the older people appeared to recognise the Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary North, or be aware of the fact that Máire Hoctor is the Minister for Older People.

Far easier to boo somebody you don't know.

Rare Marys

To be fair to the lesser-spotted Marys, they hadn't much of a clue about what the Government was doing to calm the medical card crisis. Much to their colleagues' annoyance, there was very little communication from on high with the parliamentary rank and file during a torrid week for Fianna Fáil deputies, who were appalled at the turn of events.

Most of the FF contributors to the debate on the withdrawal of medical cards from some over-70s appeared to have been handed scripts and told to go out and read them.

However, an interesting line-up of deputies was chosen by the party to firefight the situation in the media. The swollen ranks of the Ministers of State were not favoured. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan's voice was hardly heard and Ministers, apart from Harney, Hanafin, Dempsey and O'Dea, were thin on the ground.

Chief whip Pat Carey was wheeled out to reprise Jim Tunney's plinth performances from the eighties, while some new names emerged from the chaos.

Thomas Byrne, for example, is a first-time deputy and the youngest FF TD in the Dáil. A solicitor and deputy for Meath East, Byrne is proving an able performer and was put out front to take the flak on about half a dozen occasions when more senior and experienced deputies were kept indoors so as not to upset people. He was also pressed into action during the Lisbon campaign, when again, more senior figures might have been expected to do the talking.

Two other first-timers who have impressed are Cork South Central's Michael McGrath and Limerick West's Niall Collins.

Both are accountants. Perhaps the rise of young professionals Byrne, McGrath and Collins is an attempt by Fianna Fáil to counter Fine Gael's high profile new intake. Varadkar, Creighton and O'Donnell come to mind.

Marathon man

Another of the Fine Gael young bucks is Damien English, who runs on Monday in the Dublin City Marathon. The deputy for Meath West has become a familiar sight around the roads of Navan as he goes on his early morning training runs.

Damien is running to raise funds for the groundbreaking Aisling Group, which works to help young people with alcohol and drug abuse problems. It runs intervention and recovery programmes, and also works with parents and families.

In keeping with the keep fit bug which seems to have taken hold in Fine Gael, English is getting a group together to run the Connemara half-marathon next April. So far, TDs Joe McHugh and Simon Coveney have signed up. Ever the optimist, English is hoping for a group of around 10.

Not to leave Fianna Fáil out, Noel O'Flynn has joined the ranks of the Leinster House fit club. He's lost a pile of weight after starting a new diet and exercise regime.

O'Flynn tells us he fells great, and has lost "the equivalent of a bale of briquettes" off his tummy alone.

House of cards

Mary O'Rourke answered the call to patriotic action over a year before her nephew, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, urged the rest of us to do the same.

O'Rourke is most discommoded by our assertion last week that Lenihan's controversial new proposal to cut automatic medical cards for the over-70s meant she would lose hers.

To be clear about it, O'Rourke has lost her eligibility to claim a medical card.

The deputy for Longford- Westmeath, who turned a youthful 70 in May of last year, pointed this out during the week to radio listeners, to the Dáil and to this column. While fully entitled to an over-70s medical card, O'Rourke chose not to apply for one, preferring to pay her own way.

Like her colleague, former ceann comhairle and minister Dr Rory O'Hanlon, O'Rourke is doing well enough at the moment to forego the benefit (O'Hanlon got somebody in the Fianna Fáil press office to phone us up and relay the news that he too has done the same).

With their Dáil salaries of over €100,000, plus expenses, and handsome ministerial pensions, the veteran politicians must be commended for refusing to draw any further upon the generosity of the State.

One wonders how many high earners followed their fine example? The assumption on the part of Government Ministers, when talking about the wealthy elderly, seems to be that few have been as patriotic as the former ministers. The names of those well-known old age pensioners Tony O'Reilly and Michael Smurfit have been bandied about as possible beneficiaries of the automatic medical card scheme. However, one would assume O'Reilly and Smurfit and their ilk haven't applied for cards either.

All those seniors like Mary and Rory who didn't send in their forms, will not have nominated a GP, thus saving on the cost of a €640 "GP gold card". So, if we leave out the millionaires and the politicians and the people who come within the expanded thresholds, it looks like the clever medical card stunt has yielded an awful lot of grief on all sides for very little return.

Silver lining

Still with the formidable O'Rourke, she made an interesting observation in the Dáil on Thursday about protest demonstrations: "I was a deputy in 1987, serving as minister for education . . . There was a pupil-teacher ratio change of three proposed at primary level and two at post-primary level. On one Saturday there were marches and I found it difficult to go anywhere, although I went to them. On a Saturday there were 6,000 teachers outside my modest home - if I can describe it as such - in Athlone. I live in a small bungalow on the side of the road and there were gardaí and everything brought to control the 6,000 people outside my house.

"The teachers came, sent in a deputation and we spoke before they left and went into town. On the following Monday the Athlone Chamber of Commerce wrote to me to say the town greatly benefited from the numbers at my gate and asked if I could arrange for them to come again.

"The hotels, restaurants and shops greatly benefited. I still have the letter because I thought it was such a sign of entrepreneurship that the businesses were willing to seize the day of delight which came to the town."

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Tracking the bullies

Bullying is a very serious subject, and one wouldn't want to make light of any person's experiences in this regard. However, eyebrows have been raised down Kildare Street way by Senator Mary White's revelation in the Seanad on Thursday that she had been subjected to bullying by somebody in Leinster House the previous day.

Speaking about bullying in the workplace, the Fianna Fáil member and aspiring presidential candidate said: "I was actually bullied by somebody yesterday and I told my colleagues in my office what was said to me," adding that, "people have no right to intimidate other people or to try to diminish them. How dare they!"

Some people began to wonder if she got her days wrong, and had meant an incident which occurred last Sunday at the special meeting of Fianna Fáil councillors in Ballinasloe, convened to discuss the medical card fiasco.

White turned up at it. However, she was told, in no uncertain terms by a councillor based in the northern end of the country, to "f*** off out of the room, you haven't been f***ing invited." The formidable former chocolate manufacturer fought her corner, and a compromise was reached whereby she could sit at the back of the room and say nothing.

Mary's colleagues in the Senate, who would see her as a fiery and forthright individual, were also surprised.

Independent Senator Joe O'Toole was flabbergasted. "It is quite inconceivable that anyone would have the gumption to harass or intimidate or bully Senator White - I tell you, I'd like to meet him because he'd be one brave man!"

Maginnis left Down

The British Irish Parliamentary Assembly - formerly the British Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body - met last week in Newcastle. Unionist peer Ken Maginnis made history by reversing his party's boycott of the assembly. But it was a close-run thing. Lord Maginnis thought the venue was Newcastle, Co Down. Realising his mistake, he had to get up at 4.30am and cover the 260 miles from his home to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The medieval castle, with its battlements and buttresses, looked familiar to diners - it featured as "Hogwarts" in the first two Harry Potter movies.