Now Lenihan has pillars of society swooning

MIRIAM LORD'S WEEK:Minister for Finance whips up leadership talk; Denis O'Brien praises Revenue with a straight face

THERE’S SOMETHING about the Dublin Chamber of Commerce annual dinner that sets the pulse racing in Fianna Fáil’s finest. When Taoiseach Brian Cowen addressed this august gathering last year, his speech was hailed as a triumph.

Finally, declared the commentariat, Cowen is showing leadership. Unfortunately for the Taoiseach, that warm glow soon faded.

Roll on a year, and Ministers for Finance Brian Lenihan was the man at the podium on Thursday night in the Burlington Hotel. He pulled off a similar feat, bringing the 1,000-strong audience to its feet, pulling no punches in a robust address as he told the nation to brace itself for a punishing budget in December. He quoted US economist Herbert Stein. “That which cannot go on forever, won’t.” Afterwards, his speech was lauded as a “tour de force” by the swooning pillars of society. Lenihan’s leadership qualities are now being bandied about in the same way that his boss’s leadership qualities were being touted a year ago.

“They were just raving about him. They couldn’t get over the fact that he spoke without notes. They just loved him,” one guest who attended the black-tie dinner told us yesterday.

The whole gig was sponsored by AIB, so we all paid for the dinner, in a way.

Businessman Denis O’Brien was the other speaker. Denis had a lot of sympathy for John O’Donoghue and what he went through during the week. “It was akin to human hare-coursing,” said the billionaire.

He also said, with a straight face, that the most efficient department that the Government has is the Revenue. There wasn’t a whisper from his gobsmacked guests. Mentioning the boys from Dublin Castle at a Chamber of Commerce hooley is akin to talking about Macbeth backstage during a run of “The Scottish Play”.

It was noted by some wags that Denis left before midnight – probably nothing to do with the Cinderella rule, though.

A lot of fuss around St Luke’s over an oul book

Bertie’s book has charged straight to number one in the Irish bestseller list. Although there was some alarm down Drumcondra way when locals strolled past St Luke’s yesterday morning to find the place overrun by machine-gun toting dectectives in body armour and baseball caps.

It certainly topped the few eggs thrown at Eason’s shop window, and at the former taoiseach’s unoccupied Merc, when he was in Cork on Thursday.

It’s true some people might have issues with the way Bertie tells it in his autobiology, or with the way he has been travelling around the country – one assumes in his State car – promoting the same autobiopsy, but to mount an assault on the author’s office? It’s only a book, for heaven’s sake.

Relieved supporters were assured that the drama was down to an attempted armed raid on the post office next door.

The former taoiseach was a busy man on Wednesday, doing interviews on almost every radio station in Dublin. Still, at least he had the soccer match in Croker to look forward to. Except he didn’t, as he had to vote on the Nama Bill and he had no voting pair in the Dáil. We hear he wasn’t best pleased.

But Government Chief Whip, Pat Carey, has to keep a close eye on numbers these days. He wasn’t helped by the departure of the Bull on Tuesday.

The former ceann comhairle, looking shellshocked, stayed in the chamber to vote for his successor, Cap’n Kirk, and then left. He didn’t return to the chamber for the rest of the week, and the Opposition was not of a mind to grant him a voting pair.

O’Donoghue’s family travelled from Kerry to support him when he made his resignation speech. His wife, Kate Ann, sat in the front row of the public gallery, her large sunglasses a matter of much comment. As she watched her husband unburden himself in eloquent victim mode, not many people noticed a Dáil usher approaching Kate Ann. She quietly asked Mrs O’Donoghue to remove her Jackie O shades. Not in keeping with the decorum of the house, apparently. Dem’s the rules – one would have thought former speaker John, a stickler for the rules, would have known that.

Small pot of gold for beleaguered Taoiseach

Some good news at last for Brian Cowen. The Taoiseach is a leading light of the cross-party Grand Alliance syndicate, which owns a horse called Donnas Palm.

Donna’s Palm has been a nice little earner for the Oireachtas Old Nags Club, but had been unperforming of late. But the grey gelding stormed back to form a couple of weeks ago in the October Maiden at Navan. On Thursday, with jockey Paul Carberry on board, Donnas Palm came up trumps again in the Ryans Cleaning Event’s Specialists Hurdle.

“He was mainly running against novices, but jumped very well,” said trainer Noel Meade. The horse has now won over €60,000 over the last two years, which isn’t bad in these straitened times.

Meanwhile, still in “The Winner’s Enclosure”, we were stopped in our tracks this week by a small item in the Irish Farmers Journal under the arresting heading: “Mary Coughlan – a fine filly with pedigree.” Their Dealer columnist recalls reporting a few years ago how a Kentucky-based horse breeder James Keogh was so smitten with Ms Coughlan that he named a $200,000 filly after her. Clare native Keogh met the then minister for agriculture when she was on a visit to the Blue Grass State.

(I feel an FOI request coming on! Dear God, Mary, say you didn’t have your hair done and the only limousines you saw were of the bovine variety.) Dealer continues: “Given that the star of Mary Coughlan has been struggling a little of late, I checked out the performance of her equine namesake.

“‘Mary Coughlan’ ran 12 times last year in the USA as a three-year-old, winning once, coming second four times and coming third once. She earned €18,428.

“The races were of a minor nature. She has not raced this year and we can assume, therefore, that she is probably in foal.”

Back in Dublin, funnily enough, the real Mary Coughlan has been having a tough year battling detractors who would also say she isn’t at the races.

Dan ensures no breach of decorum by the Greens

There was a moment of quiet panic among the Greens last Saturday night as the party prepared to announce the result of the vote on the renegotiated Programme for Staying in Government.

Green party stalwart John Goodwillie was returning officer on the day, and so it would have fallen to him to announce the final outcome. However, as the treacherous media massed in the RDS, some on the platform began to rethink the game plan. Given the juvenile minds of some colour writers in particular, officials began to wonder if the scribes might, accidentally on purpose, mix up Mr Goodwillie with Mr Gormley.

Why would they think such a thing? In the end, Dan Boyle stepped into the breach. Just in case. The Greens are very proper about these things.

However, this caused its own problem. Dan, who was educated in America, had to call out the results in Irish. Trevor Sargent was hastily drafted to give him a quick coaching session.

After the party successfully managed to stay in power, Trevor’s mother Mildred planted a kiss on her blushing son’s cheek. Her maiden name, we learned afterwards, is Mildred Flower. Which, given her son’s love of all matters horticultural, is quite apt.

Harris seizes chance to get up Labour noses

Further to our riveting exposée last week of musical chairs in the Seanad, there has been a further development.

You will remember that the Labour Party was sulkily trying to gain superior speaking rights over the mavericks and strays that make up Joe O’Toole’s Technical Group. But the group, thanks to the temporary acquisition of Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, remained entitled to speak before Labour in the Seanad.

It may seem petty to some, but it annoyed the heck out of the socialists.

So they issued an edict to Sinn Féin, demanding that Pearse abandon the Technical Group or they would withdraw their agreement on speaking time with Sinn Féin in the Dáil.

Senator Alex White and his fellow Labour Senators duly enjoyed their moment in the sun on Tuesday, when the party got to speak before O’Toole’s rag-bag of educated and articulate university types. The moment didn’t last long, however, as the house adjourned immediately following expressions of sympathy over the sudden death of Cork-based Senator Peter Callanan.

When the Upper Chamber reconvened on Thursday, the Technical Group was pre-eminent again after Senator Eoghan Harris officially joined their ranks.

“I did it for two reasons,” said Eoghan yesterday. “First, to get longer speaking rights, but primarily, to annoy the Labour Party.” That’s the sort of no-nonsense politics we like to hear.

Eoghan wasted no time making use of his new platform, weighing in with a rousing endorsement of the proposal to move the Abbey Theatre to the GPO on O’Connell Street.

“There is a serendipity, historical and cultural, about such a move. To know there is a cultural resonance about it, we do not have to be reminded of Yeats’s great line: Did that play of mine send out/Certain men the English shot?” It was also a reminder of the men of 1916, said Senator Harris, and today’s party leaders might consider taking a moral lead from them.

“It would be good if Oireachtas members could leave behind two great monuments from a very grim, sordid and dreary time: the Abbey Theatre in O’Connell Street and a cut in their own pay to give leadership, as the men of 1916 did.”

Brian Lenihan must have been listening, because that very night, during his Chamber of Commerce speech, the Minister for Finance promised “substantial reductions” in pay for Government Ministers and senior officials in the public sector.

Heart-throb Ronan adds a little PC flourish

The flighty hearts of teenage girls around Dublin North East were all of a flutter last June when young Ronan Callely, son of Ivor, contested the local elections in the Clontarf ward. The photogenic Ronan used very eye-catching posters, and it was soon put about that besotted young ones were stealing these cut out body-shots of Callely jnr from the lampposts.

Despite running an expensive and energetic campaign, he narrowly failed to get elected. But the fight is far from over, if the latest constituency newsletter from his Dad is anything to go by. Senator Callely’s latest Ivor et Orbi features a stirring state of the nation update. “Your resolve and support is a source of inspiration and energy. Together, we can and we will, in partnership, help each other through this period.”

And by Ivor’s side is student Ronan, who is pictured next to details of Ivor’s constituency clinic. And things have changed since the June election, because Ronan, who turned 22 this month, is now “Ronan Callely PC” It has long been known by aspiring politicians that there’s nothing better than a few initials after your name to persuade the public that you are a man of gravitas and substance.

Becoming a peace commissioner helps.

Peace commissioners are appointed by the Minister for Justice under Section 88 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1924.

It is an honorary position and a PC receives no payment.

At present, the powers and duties of a peace commissioner are mainly: the taking of statutory declarations; witnessing signatures on documents if that is required by various authorities; signing certificates and orders under various acts. Bizarrely, a PC is also empowered to order the destruction of food deemed unfit for human consumption.

There is no special application form for the position, and you may nominate yourself, or a third party may nominate you for appointment. Nominations are generally received from public representatives, and a Garda superintendent may sometimes request an appointment in his or her district. Appointees are required to be of good character and are usually well established in the local community.

There are currently about 6,500 peace commissioners in the country, including Ronan Callely PC, who was appointed by the Minister in July.

Born-again Greens take up cause of the bees

The Dáil chamber buzzing on Wednesday evening after the events of the previous day, but it was in no way related to the dramatic departure of ceann comhairle O’Donoghue.

Among the more usual matters up for discussion during the adjournment debate – bank lending policy, site acquisitions and the like, was the intriguingly titled “Bee Mortality Rate”.

Green deputy Mary White spoke of the serious increase in bee mortality rates here and in the rest of Europe. The problem is also known as “Colony Collapse Disorder”, something we thought had been averted when the new programme for government was negotiated at the weekend.

The decline in the bee population is, indeed, a serious matter. Deputy White spoke from personal experience: “I have kept bees for many years in Co Carlow, underneath the Blackstairs Mountains. My own bee colonies died from varroa, which affects their immune system.”

She found a willing ear in Food Minister Trevor Sargent, who informed the house at the end of a fascinating discourse on the Irish honey bee; “Apart from keeping abreast of the international research in apiculture, I expect to take delivery of my own hive in February in an orchard in Balbriggan, near Bremore where St. Molaga, the early Christian beekeeping monk, lived.”

It’s like the Discovery Channel in the Dáil these days.

Hale and hearty Faulkner in Mark Twain moment

In his acceptance speech to the Dáil on Tuesday, the new Ceann Comhairle, Séamus T Kirk, took the opportunity to avail of a Mark Twain moment on behalf of one of his predecessors.

In pledging to uphold the best traditions of the house, he was mindful of the fine work done by those who held the chair before him. “I might also mention that I am particularly proud, coming from the Louth constituency, to follow in the footsteps of a former ceann comhairle Pádraig Faulkner, who is more than 90 years of age and in good health.”

Séamus was putting it on the record that rumours of Pádraig’s demise were greatly exaggerated in the house a week ago, when Enda Kenny twice referred to the former parliamentarian from Dunleer – another member of the Dáil’s political memoirs club, by the way – as “the late” Pádraig Faulkner.

Some of the younger Fianna Fáilers are now whooping that Enda has come up with his own variation of that well-known catchphrase from the cult cartoon South Park: “Oh My God! Who did Kenny kill?”