Flanagan poised for party chair
The Fine Gael parliamentary party will have a new chairman this week, and Charlie Flanagan is hot favourite to take the job.
It looked as if the TD for Laois-Offaly was going to be returned unopposed until John Paul Phelan, a first-time deputy from Carlow-Kilkenny, threw his hat into the ring at the last minute.
Then a third contender came into the picture. The popular Dublin South Central deputy Catherine Byrne put her name forward, but she was half an hour late for the closing of nominations and was ruled out of the contest.
Next Wednesday, deputies and Senators will have a choice between two men who backed Richard Bruton in the leadership heave. (They haven’t gone away, you know.) Flanagan appears to have the support of the party middle ground, and his experience should stand to him.
He certainly has one vote in the bag apart from his own. Phil Hogan, ministerial big cheese in Carlow-Kilkenny, will be anxious to support his long-time Dáil colleague even if it is a wrench for him to go against his popular, young, ambitious constituency colleague.
The vice-chairman’s job will go to Dan Neville of Limerick West, who is the only person nominated.
But an intriguing little contest has developed for the position of secretary.
Deputy Derek Keating, of Dublin Midwest, announced his candidature by writing to all members of the parliamentary party to canvass their support. Then a rival appeared in the form of another first-time deputy, Simon Harris, the youngest member of the Dáil.
Party eyebrows have been raised by this development, as the Wicklow TD is very close to Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, who gave young Harris a job as her parliamentary assistant when she was in opposition. And Frances is a deputy for Dublin Midwest, where the rivalry between her and her party colleague Derek Keating might charitably be described as robust.
Given the increased size of the parliamentary party, these jobs will carry a lot of clout, as the chairman and secretary are the go-betweens in the often-fraught relationship between backbenchers and party leaders.
Walls are no match for Enda the Incredible Hulk
The sight of Michael Flatley's bouffant and blouson billowing across a stage is enough to reduce anyone to tears, but Enda Kenny's admission that watching Riverdance makes him cry was just too much information.
One can only imagine the content of the diplomatic cables emanating from Ireland this weekend after Enda's stream-of-consciousness pep talk to our ambassadors on Thursday. The diplomats were recalled to Dublin for a team-building exercise at Iveagh House and a lesson from the Taoiseach in how to sell Ireland abroad.
Enda's merits as a motivational speaker have received a mixed reception since he took over the top job in March. It is generally agreed that his folksy brand of west-of-Ireland waffle goes down a treat with the diaspora. The Americans, it seems, can't get enough of it.
Back home, however, mired in economic misery, there is a limit to the amount of spirit-lifting toora-loora the public can take, and the Taoiseach may be reaching that point.
But he certainly gave their excellencies food for thought as he got their blood up and had them bursting through the walls of Iveagh House.
"For your information, this is the Leinster dressing room at half-time in Cardiff, so nobody goes out the door – you go out the window or the walls." Stirring stuff.
Enda has form when it comes to exhorting people to act like the Incredible Hulk.
Last year, he delivered a rip-roaring closing address to the parliamentary party before the vote on the leadership.
His constituency supporters, awaiting the result, had no doubt that his words would swing the day.
"I played football with him years ago, and the speeches he gave at half-time were inspirational. Only in-spir-ational," one of them told us. "He wouldn't send you back out through the door; he'd send you out through the wall." (Maybe this might explain why Mayo haven't won the All-Ireland for 50 years. All that running into walls and windows can't be good.)
As their excellencies were pounding the masonry on their way out, they were puzzling the identity of the "young fella who climbed out of the military tank in Taiwan many years ago and had no English but one word – U2". The words of Mr Motivator left them baffled.
This is one trip back to the mother country they'll never forget.
Starstruck TDs blab to press
The Queen and Prince Philip will never forget their visit to Ireland. According to the Enniscorthy Echo, they were particularly taken by Paul Kehoe, the Government Chief Whip.
"Queen Elizabeth II took time out from her hectic schedule on Wednesday at Dublin Castle to discuss Paul Kehoe's difficult job keeping the majority party in government in line," the newspaper tells us.
And in turn, "The Enniscorthy man and government chief whip said he was very impressed with the queen and Prince Philip." Kehoe told his local paper that he was lucky enough to meet her majesty on three occasions: in Government Buildings, at the State banquet in Dublin Castle and at the reception for her at the Convention Centre Dublin.
"She spoke to me about the huge majority we have in the Dáil and asked me how I keep a handle on everyone and if I worked in a similar position before. She was a very ordinary, down-to-earth woman who was amazingly up on events in Ireland and recalled meeting me earlier that day, as did Prince Philip."
Not to be outdone, his Labour constituency colleague, Brendan Howlin, was on to the Wexford People to say how delighted he was to meet the Queen during her visit to Government Buildings.
"I had a brief discussion with her and the duke. She asked me about my role as Minister for Public Expenditure and remarked that it was a difficult job in the current economic climate, but that it was happening everywhere, including the UK."
The Fine Gael backbencher Pat Deering was also regaling his local media with tales of the Queen. "I was picked out of a lottery of TDs, so I was very lucky," Pat told the Carlow Nationalist.
"It was a great night, a night not to be missed from start to finish. One thing I was taken aback by was the huge amount of security. There were snipers on the roofs even." The star-struck TD was "sitting behind Gráinne and Síle Seoige. Amanda Brunker was there as was Keith Wood, Henry Shefflin and Kieran Donaghy."
The screening process before they got to the venue was quite strict. "It was very like the security at the airport, and I had to take off my belt even," according to Deering. "On arrival we could take in a fashion show but I didn't partake in that!"
He said one of the highlights of the night for him was the performance of Riverdance. And then the penny dropped.
The Irish Times was lurking in the vicinity of the dress circle on the night and couldn't quite identify a strange sound punctuating the dance routine. It didn't appear to be coming from the stage.
But now we know. It was the sound of Enda Kenny blubbing.
First Hubbie's new office
The OPW nearly had to dynamite some Fianna Fáil Senators from their nice offices in Leinster House after the government changed.
When they finally packed up and left, maintenance crews moved in and spruced them up in readiness for the new arrivals.
During the week, green-eyed TDs and Senators from other parties have been watching the comings and goings of removal men and painters and decorators from one particular office – one formerly occupied by Fianna Fáil's Paschal Mooney, a man who kept a very neat workstation, by all accounts.
"I didn't get this sort of attention when I moved in," sniffed one deputy. "A brand new desk went in there today. The old one only had a few scratches on it as far as I could see. I think new pictures are going up on the wall." The office has been allocated to Senator Martin McAleese, aka the First Husband, who is one of the new intake of Senators and TDs billeted on the fourth floor.
Could the powers that be be worried in case the wife pays him a visit? After two terms of office, President Mary McAleese and Martin are accustomed to the salubrious surroundings of Áras an Uachtaráin.
Leinster House couldn't be seen to let the side down. Meanwhile, much speculation surrounds Martin McAleese's maiden speech. Given that he is the spouse of our First Citizen, whose role is expressly non-political, he will have to tread carefully.
The anxious wait for committee jobs
Where are the Oireachtas committees? The proper business of legislating cannot be done without them.
The Labour leadership has already informed their favoured few who are to be awarded a coveted committee chairmanship and the extra €10,000 a year that goes with it. But they cannot announce the names until Enda Kenny picks his Fine Gael selection. Labour deputies are wondering why it is taking him so long to reach a decision.
Enda has to consider a lot of deputies who consider they have a lot of reasons to be given the nod. No matter who he selects, there will be noses out of joint in the party when he makes his final choice.
But his deputies are getting impatient. "We haven't even been given an indication as to when the announcement might be made. Sure the Labour boys know who got what already," complains a senior backbencher, who is nursing aspirations. "They got four and we are getting seven, and then there's the jobs to go to Fianna Fáil and the technical group."
Among those who might be expecting a phone call areLiam Twomey, Andrew Doyle, Peter Mathews, Paschal Donohoe and Olivia Mitchell.
"I wish he would just do something," says our exasperated backbencher, who is not one of the above. Smiling quietly throughout their coalition partners' angst are the Labour four who know they have a job: we're speculating on Joe Costello, Alex White, Dominic Hannigan and Ciarán Lynch.
Purcell's little parcel of joy
Congratulations to the incoming Government press officer Feargal Purcell, who has just become a daddy. His wife, Veronica, gave birth to a bouncing baby boy on Wednesday night.
Despite the euphoria in Fine Gael over their election triumph, they will not be calling their first-born Enda. Instead, they have welcomed young Cathal into the world.
Meanwhile, Mike Miley, who soldiered in the party press office for the past six years, has left Leinster House to join PR firm MKC Communications as a client director.
He is one of a number of staff who worked with Fine Gael during the Opposition years but have parted company since it gained power, among them long-time staffer Jim Duffy, of Lenihan-tapes fame.
You've got royal mail
Haven't the British royals lovely manners? No sooner are they back from visiting than the thank-you letters are flying out of the palace.
The people of Cork got one, via the mayor. We know this because every Cork man and woman of our acquaintance has been reminding us.
Another man likely to get a nice letter is goldsmith Declan Killen of Fade Street in Dublin. He made a brooch and a pair of matching cuffkinks for the Queen and Prince Philip, and they were presented to the couple at the State banquet in Dublin Castle.
President McAleese commissioned the set and stipulated that the items should be based on designs from Newgrange, Co Meath.
Killen was delighted to get a call from the Áras after the visit telling him that the Queen was so taken with the brooch that she wore it to the Convention Centre concert the following night. "The President's secretary told me it was most unusual that the Queen would ask to wear a gift that she has just received, as normally most of them go back directly to England with her secretary. I feel honoured that she chose to wear a brooch made by an Irish goldsmith.
Gerry's tragic 'Titanic' post
There was a lot of talk about the
Titanicthis week on the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated liner's launch. As one might imagine, almost all the references to it in the Dáil managed to draw parallels with our economic situation.
But amid all the acres of newsprint and hours of talk about the ship, we must award
Titanticquote of the week to Sinn Féin's unsinkable leader Gerry Adams, who came out with this gem on his blog: "The
Titanicwas a human tragedy. So is generational sectarian discrimination." Indeed.
