Clout in doubt: Fine Gael was not the only losers in the general election. Independent deputies, present and future, were too.
Fourteen non-aligned deputies were elected, double the number returned in 1997, and the political parties - from the biggest, Fianna Fáil, to the smallest, Sinn Féin - are determined Independents will never again have the sort of power they wielded with governments in recent years.
The consensus in the parties to sideline the Independents is to ensure their own survival. Parties can't thrive, a senior source said, if those who fall out with them over, say, failing to get a nomination, have their demands met once elected: "It's bad for the party system and the political process if people can walk away when they don't get their own way and then do a deal that gives them what they want and more. You wouldn't be able to get people to run for a party at all if that continued".
An example of the syndrome is the four deputies who supported the outgoing FF/PD administration, all of whom received special treatment in return for their votes. No doubt some of the new Independents owe their victory to the belief by their constituents that they would have the clout of Jackie Healy Rae, Mildred Fox, Harry Blaney and Tom Gildea. The FF/PD deal has put paid to that.
While they delivered for their constituencies, Healy Rae and Fox were only barely re-elected; Blaney passed his seat to his son; and the polls were so bad for Gildea that he didn't run at all. So while they were envied for the attention devoted to them and the pandering to their desires, it didn't pay off in the long run. So much so, that Fox is supporting Tony Gregory's ongoing efforts to form a technical group in the Dáil which aims to secure speaking and committee rights rather than special deals for an alliance of independents. It is argued that in the event of a future falling-out in the coalition, it will be over something so major that it would be difficult for the Independents to row in behind FF and save them.
New boys and girls shown the ropes `
There are 54 new Dáil deputies and about 40 turned up in Leinster House on Thursday of last week for an induction session and lunch hosted by the Clerk of the Dáil, Kieran Coughlan. The no-shows were mostly those who had served before either in the Dáil or Seanad and while the four new Sinn Féin TDs had the lunch, they missed the briefings as they had a private meeting already arranged.
The newly elected were given an information pack and a tour, then divided up for lunch as staff explained procedures and protocol. The Superintendent Comdt Eamon O'Donohoe told them the dress code for male members in the chamber was jacket and tie. Well no, he admitted, Tony Gregory didn't wear a tie but when he came in first he had a scarf round his neck and they didn't notice so he got away with it. Gregory had argued that many of his constituents didn't wear ties so why should he; oh yes they did, the Super told him, had he never been at a wedding or a funeral.
New PD Fiona O'Malley asked about a dress code for women and was told that although gloves and hats had gone they were never any trouble as ladies always knew how to dress. Or words to that effect. O'Malley then donned a hat to take her seat on Thursday.
New Green Ciaran Cuffe told Quidnunc that he expected to be entering a 21st-century debating chamber rather than a London gentlemen's club of the 19th century. Some of the procedures were antiquated he said, including the ban on the use of laptops in the chamber. Cuffe has serious political connections. His first cousin, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the late Bobby Kennedy's daughter, is currently running for Governor of Maryland. If she wins, and she's going well, she will be the first woman to hold the post.
Mansion House moves
When Labour's Eric Byrne was elected deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin last July, he and 25 supporters were refused entry to the party in the Mansion House hosted by new Lord Mayor, FF's Michael Mulcahy, on the grounds that the place was so full only 10 more would fit. Byrne took off in high dudgeon for Buswells Hotel round the corner.
The rivalry which started then between two men from different parties fighting for Dáil seats in the same constituency, Dublin South Central, continued throughout the year, as both sought electoral advantage from their different and unequal positions.
Mulcahy made it to the Dáil; Byrne did not. While Byrne has been acting Lord Mayor since May 18th, all is not rosy. He has again failed to get into the Mansion House, in the sense of living there, because a refurbishment is underway, and he will be ousted from his post on Monday when FF councillors meet to elect a replacement for Mulcahy for the remaining three weeks of the term. The post is expected to go to Anthony Creevey, who split with Labour in the row over bin charges.
The interim Lord Mayor will no sooner
be installed than the 11 Labour city councillors meet on Monday week to choose the capital's next Lord Mayor. The scheduled election by the full council will go ahead as planned at the AGM on July 1st and the chosen one will hold office for the following 12 months.
Under the FF/ Labour pact, the position is divided between them - three years for FF, two for Labour - and now it's Labour's turn again. Councillors Roisín Shortall, Joe Costello and Tommy Broughan are members of the Dáil and Derek McDowell is running for the Seanad, making all four ineligible to be first citizen.
Of the remaining seven Labour councillors, five (Byrne, Dermot Lacey, Kevin Humphries, Michael Conaghan and Brendan Carr) are interested and whoever gets six votes first on the 17th wins the nomination and subsequently the job. It will be a tight contest.
Forum on the road
Last week, the National Forum on Europe presented the second report of its chairman Maurice Hayes. When it was set up in the wake of the Nice Treaty defeat, few gave it much of a future as it was seen as a device for parking the issue until after the election. When Fine Gael refused to co-operate, it was felt that public boredom and low attendance would kill it off within months. The pundits were wrong. It has proved a crowd-puller. As it toured the country, FG's John Bruton broke with party policy (after clearance) and addressed it, and the anti-Nice Greens and Sinn Féin participated. The impartiality of Hayes and his patience is seen as a major factor in keeping the show on the road.
Will the new government continue it? Almost definitely. The Forum is seen as a vital element in the campaign for Nice Mark II and an answer to those who complain of unaccountability and lack of consultation. Ray MacSharry, the Government nominee to Valery Giscard d'Estaing's convention on the Future of Europe, will address the Forum this month - as will other Irish members of the Brussel's body: Bruton, Prionsias De Rossa MEP (who may now be replaced since he is no longer a TD), John Gormley, Martin Cullen and Bobby McDonagh of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Will Enda Kenny's FG now participate? Probably. While it is the most pro-Europe of all, FG's absence from the Forum passed this position to FF.
The referendum is likely in mid-October so Bertie Ahern and Co can, they hope, attend the Brussels summit on October 23rd and 24th as fully fledged Europeans again. Meanwhile, there is mounting hysteria in pro-Nice circles that unless the Government gets going fast and strong, the treaty could be lost again.
Mary declines to dish the dirt
Unfortunately, former minister and new Senator Mary O'Rourke is not writing her memoirs. Her story would be some tale. O'Rourke said on RTÉ this week that in her new life outside the Dáil, she would be doing a bit of writing. But that's book reviews and things, she told Quidnunc, not memoirs - and no, she wouldn't have more timeon her hands. "I can't write memoirs. At the start of the government, we said we wouldn't. And the ban applies to officials too. But I have no real desire to do so."
Unlike in Britain, Ireland has no tradition of the political memoir. Only last month in Momentum, Mo Mowlam was dishing the dirt on her former colleagues in New Labour. Here, we've had Gemma Hussey on her years in Cabinet, and a great read it was too; Garret FitzGerald's academic account of his career; and Barry Desmond's lengthy re-telling of his. The best memoirs were written by the temporary civil servants, Sean Duignan and Fergus Finlay, and it was Diggie's One Spin on the Merry-go-round, tales of his days as press officer to Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, much of it hilarious, which led Bertie Ahern, in 1997, to impose a ban on ministers and advisers writing memoirs.
Civil servants are bound by the Official Secrets Act and Cabinet meetings are protected anyway but now all concerned are required to undertake that they will not write memoirs or books specifically related to their work or their time in office.
Cabinet ministers Maire Geogeghan Quinn (now at the European Court of Auditors), Des O'Malley, Pee Flynn and Charlie McCreevy have all indicated at various times that they will write a memoir but only McCreevy will be under restriction from 1997. The ban, coupled with the huge fall-off in written memos and letters within government, for fear of revelation under the Freedom of Information Act, means archivists will be starved of material. We, the reading public, are the losers.