THE EUROPEAN commission president may not be the best known political leader in the world, but at 9.30am on a wet Saturday morning in the departures area of Shannon airport, José Manuel Barroso was box office gold, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
Emerging from a conference room after a short meeting of the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee, foreign TV crews pursued him through the terminal while bleary-eyed travellers stretched for a glimpse and local politicians, their excess dignity relinquished at the check-in desk, angled over his shoulder and into the frame. “Any chance you’d take a few schnaps,” one local TD asked a photographer as he swung into position.
It was car-free day in Limerick on Saturday, so in deference to the Irish custom of observance on this special day, Barroso travelled to the Treaty City in a cavalcade of five cars, a mini-bus, a squad car and four motorcycle outriders.
He ingratiated himself in other ways, too. Flanked by former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald at the city’s Milk Market later in the morning, he chatted with the relaxed air you’d expect from a man who had last week clinched a second term in the job.
Looking as breezily casual as anyone with a phalanx of staff, journalists and gardaí on his heel could manage, he chatted with stall-owners and shoppers, buying a bunch of carrots and a slab of chocolate as he went. Local TDs Willie O’Dea and Peter Power clung so close to his side that strangers would have mistaken them for bodyguards.
The press of people and the momentum of his entourage meant there was no time to discuss the Lisbon Treaty, had anyone at the market been inclined to raise it. Another obstacle was the non-recognition factor. One woman took a photo with her phone, then admitted she wasn’t sure who he was.
“Who is he,” asked another middle-aged shopper as he passed. “He’s from Portugal. He’s the head of the EU,” a young man obliged. “Is he the president or what?” “Some big shot anyway.”
Protesters and dissenters were few and far between on Saturday, and those who did register their disapproval – a few heckling passersby, a couple of anti-war demonstrators in Guantánamo-style jumpsuits at Shannon airport and a peaceable Sinn Féin gathering at City Hall – did so in the politest possible way. Nothing came of rumours that Declan Ganley might appear.
You got the feeling that Barroso had expected to be tested a little more. He had well-honed comebacks at the ready when the odd awkward question came his way, but rarely were they called into use by confrontation with a convinced no voter.
At a question-and-answer session at the University of Limerick (where he was presented with a wooden bowl made from an old cedar tree that represented something of the “heart and soul” of the campus), a representative from the Peace and Neutrality Alliance complained about the use of Shannon airport by US troops, just about the only note of demurral at the meeting and the one that animated Barroso more than any other (he responded that the Government’s decision on Shannon had nothing to do with the EU, let alone the Lisbon Treaty).
As the cavalcade rolled through the city and the lines of his hectic schedule were successively crossed out, Barroso delivered the same bullet-points again and again. Ireland had done well out of its EU membership, and together member states could make advances that would be unthinkable by going it alone.
There were reminders of bankrupt Iceland, where “people went to the ATM machine and there was no money”. He repeated that Irish banks had received €120 billion in loans from the European Central Bank, and used a meeting at City Hall to commit almost €15 million to help former Dell employees get back to work.
He was uncharacteristically blunt when asked about some of the No side’s literature. Any claim that Lisbon would bring about a reduction in Ireland’s minimum wage was “absurd”, he said. “It’s so absurd, I don’t know what to say. This is a lie. It’s a lie. It’s a lie.” Above all, he argued, a No vote would damage confidence in Ireland and Europe, and this was not the time to deplete such a precious resource.
“As the Taoiseach and Charlie McCreevy have said, now is not the time to gamble. And Charlie McCreevy knows a lot about this issue of gambling.”
After winding down the afternoon with a meeting of women’s groups and a visit to a local school, Barroso yesterday packed his mementoes – seven carrots, a slab of chocolate and a wedge of tree trunk – and took off for New York, probably no wiser as to whether the Irish will end up giving him what it was he really had come here looking for.