Gods of small things

Despite living in his constituency we haven't spotted Bertie yet. Bit annoyed about this, because everyone else I know seems to be able to provide chapter and verse on some recent Bertie experience or other. Bertie in his local pub, Fagan's. Bertie on the hustings. Bertie hanging out near Holles Street, seeming embarrassed to admit his grandchildren are called Rocco and Jay, which in fairness you can understand.

I even know somebody who knows one of the women he is pictured with in one of those "sure isn't everything great in this country, never a cloud in the sky" posters. All things being equal, this woman would have been in the photo with her husband, but my mole says the husband was too tall and made Bertie look slightly shrimp-like, so he didn't make the final cut.

It used to be Bono, but this weather everybody has a Bertie story. We only have a measly Bertie-by-association story from the current election season. My boyfriend was coming back from an evening jog a couple of weeks ago when it happened. He'd nearly reached our door when out of the falling darkness two people he unkindly described as Bertie's henchmen loomed into view. There was no escape. Where are you from, they asked. When he said Co Armagh they started analysing the performance of Crossmaglen Rangers. My boyfriend didn't have the heart to tell them that he kicked with the other foot.

Anyway, they wanted to know if he had any issues in the area. A problem that needed sorting? We, they implied, can sort it out. Because he didn't want to disappoint them - "they looked so eager," he said - he repeated what I'd said to Bertie four years ago when asked the same question. The local recycling depot, he explained, closes too early and isn't open on Saturdays. They wrote it down in their notebook, and my boyfriend forgot about the encounter.

He got a letter from the Taoiseach less than a week later. Bertie had personally written to waste-management services and got them to explain the opening hours of all local recycling facilities. "If I can be of assistance with any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Yours sincerely, Bertie."

Everyone has a Bertie story. Maybe it's those shiny, happy posters, but he seems to appeal to children. This, I think, is because Bertie, as a name, isn't that far removed from Barney or Tweenie. There is also a character in Thomas the Tank Engine called Bertie the Bus, which might have something to do with it. A friend's four-year-old son has been displaying worrying pro-Bertie signs, insisting any time the Taoiseach's actions are called into question: "No, Mum, Bertie always tells the truth."

Bono might say Bertie moves in mysterious ways. No problem is too big, no local issue too small. I was told about someone whose mother needed to go to Spain for a family funeral but couldn't find her passport. Desperate, the girl went to Fagan's pub to find Bertie, who happened to be there that night. His constituent told him the sorry tale and burst into tears. "Give me 10 minutes," said Bertie before disappearing into his car to make some calls. Passport problem solved.

It's not just Bertie, of course. At election time you hear clientelism stories like this about every politician. While he was at UCD in the dark days of 1984, a man called Lee Komito did some research on the clientelism phenomenon for a PhD he was submitting to a US university. He wrote that the politician who intervenes on behalf of constituents and the client who rewards the politicians with a vote represented "an acceptable, and even fashionable" model of Irish political life.

He went on to suggest that such political systems are linked with traditional societies or underdeveloped economics, and concluded "clientelism will cease to exist in modern and industrialised societies".

In other words, when a country has developed and the economy is booming there'll be no need for clientelism. In theory, anyway. Except I just heard of another woman who is happily telling friends about a pedestrian crossing in the Taoiseach's constituency where the green man can be seen shining just that little bit longer than he used to, allowing her to safely cross the road with her double buggy. Bertie got it sorted.

I was thinking about this when a young friend with cystic fibrosis texted to say she was on a trolley in A&E. But what does she expect? It's election time and our political representatives are busy playing God with little green men.