IT WAS the best of the debates by far, so far. Like a polite evening altercation in the bar at a teachers' conference after another productive day tearing strips off the department, the media and each other, writes MIRIAM LORD
Bickering in beautiful Irish, they tried to outdo each other with their plans for the country, their commitment to the first language and their love of fish and small farmers.
Thanks to our compulsory Leaving Cert Irish (hons) we could barely understand a word they were saying, but the subtitles worked a treat.
Following a two-way and a five-way, this was the first of the three-way debates. TG4 provided the studio and Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore and Micheál Martin provided focail. Sorry, the focail.
It was very educational.
Enda decided to take advantage of the public platform by plugging Fine Gael’s forthcoming lottery. Fiat, it seems, have donated five Puntos for the draw.
Fine Gael has a “cúig puntas” plan, the party leader insisted on telling us, again and again.
Angela Merkel is very impressed, said Enda. Did he mention that he met Angela during the week? She’s a cailín álainn, is the German chancellor.
Then Micheál called him “a mad button”. At least that what it sounded like. A “buthan amadánach.” Micheál said he had a capital plan involving 35 billion balloons.
It’s not in his manifesto, but we’re all for it. But who will blow them up? We suggest Gerry Adams, not because he was in the IRA, because he wasn’t, but because he’ll never let you down on the hot air front.
Eamon Gilmore, mindful that Fine Gael seems to be taking away some of their middle class support, revealed a radical plan to “target the emerging middle classes” from China, India and Russia.
Enda Kenny sat in the prime position in the middle of the other two. This was not because he is ahead of the other two in the opinion polls by a country mile, but because the seating arrangement was done according to alphabetical order.
But it made Enda look every so slightly more important – placed centre stage, wearing a statesman’s gold tie between the other two still clinging to their image consultants’ red. He hammed it up for the photographs too. While Eamon and Micheál stood with their hands by their sides and faced the cameras, Enda behaved like he’d been on a deportment course.
Flinging one leg forward, he adopted a side-on pose, tilted his chin, threw a shoulder back and raised his left hand to the top button on his jacket in a vaguely Napoleonic gesture. It was as if he had wandered into the how to pose for the Evening Herald social diary class instead of the how to look presidential module.
Micheál did very well. According to our gaelgóir friends, his Irish was most suspect. But he impressed us big time.
“Fianna Fáil has laid out a vision in Harvest 2020,” he declared during the segment on forestry, turf, meat and milk, before going on to extol the brilliance of the former minister for free cheese, Brendan Smith.
You don’t hear that too often.
The Fianna Fáil leader presumed that everyone knew about Harvest 2020. Some of us didn’t. Is it like Gouldings 10:10:20, only with added vision? If there was to be a bit of a rí-rá agus ruaille buaille, it would probably come from the fractured axis of Fine Gael/Labour. The two parties have been sniping at each other since the election began, getting more vicious by the day.
This would be Eamon’s chance to get angry. Aillilíu! Labour’s puc would be ar buile at last.
The body language boded well. Eamon stared with such intensity at Enda we feared for the Fine Gael leader’s safety. And Enda was leaning so far away from Eamon we feared he would slide off the table and into poor Micheál’s lap.
In the end, the biggest spat – if you could call it that – was between the FF and FG leaders and it was over Enda’s proposal to abolish compulsory Irish. (Something, incidentally, he proposed at a public meeting in Cork City Hall back in November, 2005, because we were there. So it isn’t a plan that was cobbled together at the last minute.) Meanwhile, given our limited knowledge of the first language, it was difficult to know if the subtitles were true to the exchanges. At one point, Micheál addressed his two opponents with “Ní bheidh na lads . . .” The subtitles ran with “clearly, the other to parties . . .” It was comforting to know that our economic situation is just as baffling as Gaeilge as it is in English, although listening to Eamon Gilmore talk about “na bonkery” and “an bailout” was somewhat disconcerting.
Nobody mentioned the “pól dubh” although outside of the TG4 studios, the leaders talked of little else all day but the “black hole” in some party’s financial calculations.
Interestingly, the subtitles made it easier to grasp what was being said by the protagonists. And the leaders, because they don’t normally debate through Irish, had to listen more carefully to each other. The level of debate was far better, and more thoughtful, than in previous outings. The soundbites were sidelined.
Who performed best? Gilmore, by a short head, followed by Kenny. But all three did well.
And they have beautiful Irish.
The final question from moderator Eimear Ní Chonaola, who did extremely well, was a lighthearted one: if they could play for their respective counties, what position would they chose? Enda, who is a stalwart of the quaintly named Islandeady club, said he would be captain so he could be “all over the pitch”. Micheál opted for midfield so he could “steer the games properly”. And Eamon wanted to play in goal so he could wear the red jersey of Labour and have the number one on his back – the number one he hopes voters will give to his party.
An engaging evening. One suspects they will be far less civilised for the final three-way debate next week.
But for one night at least, our leading politicians were a credit to themselves.