Missed opportunity.
Heather Humphreys should have hotfooted it down to Dublin Fire Brigade’s HQ on Monday morning instead of Wednesday morning.
It was too late by then.
On Monday, she could have run into Tara Street station roaring: “Fire! Fire! I wish to report a fire! It’s raging in Fianna Fáil – they’re all raging – and their presidential campaign has gone up in smoke. They’re pure destroyed, hi.”
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Then she could have run over to Pearse Street Garda station and reported Micheál Martin and Jack Chambers for arson.
What a standout moment for her campaign this would have been. And, not only that, she would have showcased her presidential credentials as a model citizen by performing her civic duty and reporting a major public incident.
But by Wednesday morning, not even the brave men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade could have salvaged anything from the burnt-out wreckage in Leinster House.
On Wednesday evening, with their chosen candidate completely gutted and their election ambitions incinerated, fuming parliamentary party members gathered to rake over the ashes and vow that Martin and Chambers will never be allowed to play with matches on their own again.
Back at Tara Street fire station (it’s actually on Townsend Street), Fine Gael’s candidate resisted the temptation to joke about Jim Gavin’s spontaneous combustion and incandescent backbenchers holding Micheál’s feet to the fire.
Heather, who held a number of cabinet positions before leaving national politics at the last election, was undertaking a daylong tour of the inner city, visiting a number of community-focused venues.
First stop, the fire station and a chance to recognise and appreciate all the great work done by the fire service.
The former deputy leader of Fine Gael said she experienced this first-hand when her daughter was involved in an crash. She will be forever grateful to the firefighters who were first on the scene.
But when we arrived on the scene in Tara Steet, there was no sign of her.
Up a tree rescuing a kitten, perhaps?
As the weeks progress, we will notice how the two remaining contenders in this race will be very hands-on for photographic purposes.
Then we heard the roar of a fire engine and the wail of a siren.
Off on a shout, lads?
The vehicle moved further down the appliance bay instead of into the street.
Then we saw it. Heather being hands-on. Sitting high up in the passenger seat beside a fireman as the siren went again.
We haven’t seen her look so happy since she climbed into the cab of a multidirectional forklift in Monaghan at the start of the 2020 general election campaign.
The fire tender stopped and a gaggle of men in uniform darted forward, looking slightly concerned.
“Watch yourself there!”
Heather pushed the door open and looked out. The ground was a long way down. She stood up in the cab and turned this way and that way before biting the bullet and climbing down.
The officers leant forward, like wicket keepers. Just in case.
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
“The cobwebs are gone now,” she chortled, looking relieved.
After a long chat with assistant chief fire officer John Guilfoyle, assistant chief fire officer Richie Hedderman and third officer ops south Paul O’Reilly, she spoke to the waiting media.
The officers, meanwhile, said they were delighted to see her and appreciated her coming to highlight the important work done by firefighters.
“We’ll get the pipe band to play at your inauguration,” one of them told her.
The media engagements are formulaic, even at this early stage, with Heather standing on her record of public service and saying how she will be a president of community, unity and opportunity.
She is not particularly comfortable during these set pieces and there is also a slight air of tension about the people with her, as if they are petrified she might inadvertently say something controversial or some journalist might come out with a killer question to knock her chances stone dead.
For all their vigilance, none of them noticed her driver parking right underneath an enormous sign which said, in big red letters: “NO PARKING AT ANY TIME”.
The questions were not particularly taxing. There was one about the budget which she batted away by saying that as a former government minister she is well aware of the difficult decisions that have to be made when framing a budget, but as our president is above politics it would not be correct for her to comment now.
An amusing gaffe in the campaign video released after her Belfast trip on Monday was dealt with easily enough: it was an error and she thanked those people (her election rivals) who spotted it.
In the opening frames, what should have been a photograph of Belfast City Hall was, in fact, a picture of the Reichstag in Berlin.
Pity she didn’t do a JFK and declare “Ich bin ein Aghaboger, hi”.
There was one flash of fire when Heather brought up her opponent’s video, which also attracted a lot of comment overnight. In the opening frames of Catherine Connolly’s promo, a smiling image of President Michael D Higgins appears.
It was pointed out that a sitting president would never allow their image to be used by a candidate fighting a presidential election.
It took a while before the video was taken down.
Heather followed up the question about the Reichstag mistake with a pop at Catherine.
“Just on the subject of videos, I know there’s another video going around at the minute, and it’s got President Michael D Higgins in it. I think Catherine has put that video out, and it looks like they’re kind of very good friends, and maybe that is the case, I don’t know ...” she said sweetly, fully aware that everyone knows Michael D and Catherine Connolly aren’t exactly bosom buddies.
“ ... but I just wondered, has Catherine got permission from the President – I understand she hasn’t – to show that video, so maybe she needs to look at that as well.”
Ooh. Burn.
And, speaking of missed opportunities, the Humphreys camp missed another one.
Was it beyond the capability of any of these political hotshots to remember Boolavogue and figure out a line about setting the Heather blazing?
They were in a fire station, for God’s sake.
This is going to be a long few weeks.
The Fine Gael candidate’s next port of call was to the Daughters of Charity Community Services centre in Henrietta Street.
It’s a sprawling operation set in a restored Georgian house and the place was buzzing.
Here, there would be no media intervention so Heather was able to do what she likes best: talk to people.
Here, she was much more relaxed, meeting a young woman doing an employment class on retail work and stepping into a class of trainee barbers.
She told the women she came from a small farm in the middle of rural Ireland “and my mother always said to me: ‘there’s no job you can’t do.’ And I believe that. If you want to achieve it, you go for it. And keep seeing it in your mind. You have to see it and you go for it and believe in yourselves.”
They posed for a group selfie.
“Will you put me on the news so me Ma can see you?” asked Katelyn, who didn’t get to deliver her funny line to Heather: “How can you run for president if you have to be 35?”
Instructor Chris Kane asked Katelyn, Hazel, Abbie, Natasha and Torie what they thought of Heather.
“Yeah, she’s great. She’s lovely, isn’t she.”
The hands-on bit came at the barbering course where the lads are almost ready to start work on the shop floor.
Mark Conka was styling Marcus O’Neill’s hair, shaving a popular “fade” style around the lower half of his head. Marcus (17) is a TikTok star with 50,000 followers for his account, where he promotes his cousin’s clothing brand.
Heather took charge of the electric razor and had a go. “I’ve done something similar with the dog.”
Tutor Susan Farrell wasn’t too concerned.
“The blade is on a very high number. She can’t do much damage.”
