Miriam Lord: Mysterious case of the uninvited women

Thirteen Independent men, good, strong and true, held a very important meeting on Thursday. And then they told the two women about it.

It was all, of course, a misunderstanding. No disrespect intended. Maureen O'Sullivan and Katherine Zappone are not in the least bit offended, but they are rather amused.

It was all go on Thursday morning, with talks on government formation back in the spotlight as the third vote to elect a taoiseach approached. The 15 Independents had been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of clarity from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil and the final straw came on Wednesday night when Micheál Martin tried to push them into declaring for a party before they knew what was on offer.

Michael Healy-Rae called a meeting of the Independents: the six-strong Independent Alliance, the so-called Rural Five, the Healy-Raes and O’Sullivan and Zappone. It took place after midday in Agriculture House, where some TDs have offices. All the fellas were there.

The meeting went on for some time and produced a document – the Ag House Agreement – stating they would be abstaining on the vote for taoiseach and taking no further part in talks until Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil reached agreement on a minority government.

At one point, O’Sullivan got a phone call from Finian McGrath, who read the statement to her over the phone and asked if she was willing to sign it. O’Sullivan, who agreed with its content, said she was.

As it happened, she was due to attend a meeting in Ag House at 1.30pm. When she came in, she saw the lads on their way out.

“I didn’t realise there was anything happening but as soon as I arrived, I realised they had just had a meeting,” she said.

Maureen looked at them. “How come I wasn’t invited?” she demanded. “Eh . . . how come you didn’t tell me?”

There were sheepish apologies.

Meanwhile, Zappone tweeted earlier in the day that she intended to abstain. She subsequently changed her mind having spoken with the Taoiseach, deciding to support him. But her male colleagues were unaware of this when they met.

“I didn’t get invited to the meeting,” Katherine confirmed, but she did have a couple of missed calls from around the time the meeting ended. (Probably after Maureen jogged a few memories with her unexpected appearance.)

She said she was asked if she would like to sign the document and appreciated being included but had already made up her mind to vote for Enda.

Healy-Rae, we hear, has accepted responsibility for the oversight. He was mortified on Thursday evening, although some of his colleagues mustn’t have been aware of this as they blustered on about being unable to establish contact despite making numerous calls.

Healy-Rae apologised profusely to the two women, saying he had so much on his plate trying to ring around everyone and organise the meeting that he “just forgot” to invite them.

But to be fair to Healy-Rae, none of the other 12 remembered the two women, engrossed as they were in the manly business of drafting their big Ag House Agreement.

But again, to be fair, they did tell the girls about it later. There was absolutely no offence intended, and none taken. What happened was accidental, but perhaps indicative of a certain mindset not uncommon among many men of a certain age in Leinster House.

Zappone, by the way, is being spoken of as a possible minister for education or for equality. As for O'Sullivan, she must be listening with great interest to all the talk about appointing Healy-Rae, Michael Fitzmaurice or Denis Naughten as minister for rural affairs. She told us that in all the negotiations, she heard no talk of urban problems. At her insistence, there is now a chapter on urban disadvantage in the Fine Gael policy document.

Not that any ministries will be handed out any time soon. Government sources have said the Dáil will not elect a taoiseach next Wednesday. There’s too much wooing for Fine Gael to do and too little time to do it.

Labour has not been ruled out either, with two meetings between party leaders and senior ministers this week.

Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin headed off for a pint together after one of them. Should the party membership agree to a return to government, Labour would get one senior ministry, two junior ministers and three senators.

That’s a lot of high-grade exposure as opposed to having to fight for scraps from Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin’s table.

Senator tells tales of Seanad bullies but names no names

The Seanad is a sleepy outpost of the Dáil. Nothing much happens there . . . or so it seems, as its brash big brother on the other side of Leinster House corners the headlines.

However, it can be a dangerous place, particularly if you are an Independent senator with a mind of your own. In the Seanad, Jillian van Turnhout proved a very effective operator in the area of children’s rights. It’s a very worthy cause which she served well, but worthy causes often get overlooked.

So it was good to see the Children’s Rights Alliance hosting an event on Wednesday night to mark Jillian’s achievements as she bows out of national politics.

In the course of a wide-ranging and generous speech at The Ark children’s cultural centre, the acting Taoiseach’s nominee reflected on her time in the Seanad. She revealed that her “lowest moment” came when she was “bullied” by some colleagues and “pinned up against a wall” by one irate Senator who wanted her to vote a particular way.

“If you had asked me [my lowest moment] a few days before the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, I would have said that this would be my most tense vote. The debate was fractious, bigoted and filled with misinformation,” she said.

But a few hours later, over a different issue, things got much worse.

“I was shouted at in the corridor, grabbed, cornered and at one stage even pinned up against a wall – all by Opposition parties and Independent members – who felt they could ‘bully’ me into voting a particular way,” she said.

She said nobody from the Government side approached her. And what critical national issue had them in such a fury? It was a vote to delay the Bill proposing a referendum to abolish the Seanad.

“In my head, all I could think was that only six months previously we were one vote short of delaying the passage of the Social Welfare Bill which brought in the cuts to the respite care grant. If we couldn’t get our acts together to frustrate this utterly unfair cut, how, in good conscience, could we justify delaying the passage of a Bill which was about keeping our own jobs?”

Instead, she said she voted with “her gut” for a referendum.

“The footage of the day will show how I was jeered and shouted at by Opposition Senators for being a ‘traitor’. Funny how they changed their view when the people of Ireland gave the Seanad a mandate.”

Who were the culprits? Jillian preferred not to say . She told her story to show “it’s not all rosy in the Seanad”.

As to what happened in 2013, she believes Opposition politicians “lost the run of themselves” because two Fine Gael Senators had just voted against the party on abortion, leaving the Government in a vulnerable minority situation.

The next vote was on the Seanad bill and Opposition members were sensing blood.

“There was a frenzied air at that moment. It was intense,” she said. “I went to the Members’ Bar to have something to eat but I couldn’t stay there because people wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to leave, but it took me an hour to get back to my office because of them.”

Lovely carry-on from national parliamentarians.

Sneakers de rigueur for lunch with Bill Clinton

The Irish America magazine has just held its annual Hall of Fame awards lunch, with added "Special Commemoration of the 1916 Rising Centenary." This year's inductees were Eileen Collins, Nasa's first female space shuttle commander; Gen Martin E Dempsey, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; Edward JT Kenney, special consultant at Mutual of America and journalist, Pete Hamill.

Bill Clinton was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The event was held at the Metropolitan Club in New York, and with Bill on the guest list, security at the door was strict.

Writer Rosemary Rogers, one of the magazine's contributors, arrived with her husband, Robert (Bob) Downey Snr – father of actor Robert Downey Jnr, but they were refused admission.

Rosemary takes up the story: "Then along comes William Jefferson Clinton. As he passed, I asked, "Mr President, can you give us a hand? We're supposed to be inside but my husband can't get in because he's wearing sneakers." Clinton said, "Ah love sneakers. Why, that's not a problem, one of mah favourite senators, Patty Murray, wears sneakers every day to Congress. C'mon in with me." And the three of them sailed in past the silent doorman.

Meanwhile, further details have emerged of the harrowing ordeal of Gerry Adams in March at the hands of officious secret service agents who wouldn't let him into the White House for the St Patrick's Day knees-up. Unfortunately, his pal Bill Clinton wasn't on hand to steer him past the doorman.

An onlooker overheard Adams being asked by a young secret service agent: “Do you go by Gerard or Gerry, Mr Adams?” It’s no wonder they had to apologise for the mix-up.

Closer to home, the looming Brexit vote has been eclipsed by our own local difficulties. Yesterday, at a lunch in Dublin hosted by Association of European Journalists, Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes made the following observation: "In a marvellous interview with Nigel Farage in last weekend's Financial Times, Henry Mance described his lunch with the Ukip leader as both informative and liquid.

“They had four pints, a bottle of Chablis and two large ports, all before 4pm. Clearly Mr Farage and the Leave campaign are getting confident – they seem to be celebrating already . . .”