Miriam Lord’s Week: Freshers get the Willies in FF puzzle

Ógra Fianna Fáil is experiencing a surge in applications for membership, thanks to a cartoon version of Willie O'Dea.

The party’s youth wing has produced an impressive version of the popular Where’s Wally? picture puzzle game, with the former minister for justice playing the starring role. Where’s Willie? is doing the rounds of colleges and universities this month as part of Ógra’s national recruitment drive and he’s drumming up great business for the baby FFers.

A life-sized cardboard cut-out of Willie, complete with generous moustache and a red and white bobble hat, accompanies the young volunteers as they try to lure students to their stand during freshers’ week. Willie’s image also adorns badges and stickers, sunglasses and yo-yos.

The real Willie O'Dea has given the thumbs-up to his cartoon counterpart and was photographed beside him during a visit to the University of Limerick.

Micheál Martin has also posed beside cartoon Willie, who has a smile and jaunty thumbs-up for Willie-watchers hoping to spot him in the big pictures. He pitched up in the Fianna Fáil tent at the ploughing championships. People were queuing up to play Where’s Willie? (five different Willies to be found in each of the elaborate scenes) and win a prize.

Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan, a former Ógra chairman, was on the stand. "This is the best thing ever," he told us, as a couple pored over a poster in search of five Willie O'Deas. "It's brilliant. People just love it."

The political parties always make a big effort to woo students during societies' day at the start of the academic year. Where's Willie? has been proving a big hit for Fianna Fáil. Journalist Dara Bradley, writing in the Connaught Tribune, gave a rundown of what was on offer to students in NUIG earlier this month.

Willie wasn't the only cardboard cut-out on display. Fine Gael offered students the opportunity to take selfies with a cardboard Michael Collins. Sinn Féin had a man dressed up as a 1916 volunteer. The Social Democrats asked people to donate items such as clothes and sleeping bags to their Syrian Refugee Appeal. And Labour went down the synergy route, hoping to attract new members with free condoms.

By the way, cardboard Willie didn’t make it to the ploughing. Moynihan suspects he may have been stolen by admirers in UCC.

Rip-roaring O’Donnell floors FF ‘attention seekers’

The Seanad returned on Wednesday after the long summer recess with Fianna Fáil hoping to land a nifty upper cut on the Coalition on the first day back.

Darragh O’Brien, the party’s leader in the Upper House, thought he had the Government on the ropes when engineering a vote on whether the Attorney General should be invited into the chamber to answer questions on the Fennelly interim report.

With the Government having lost its Seanad majority and a number of Labour Senators away at the ploughing championships, O’Brien and his colleagues gleefully anticipated an embarrassing defeat for the Government.

“We’re gonna take them out,” whispered one excited Fianna Fáiler outside the canteen. But they lost the vote, with five of the Taoiseach’s nominees – who are staunchly independent – swinging in behind the Government.

They may have been persuaded by a rip-roaring performance from Marie-Louise O’Donnell, who excoriated Fianna Fáil as juvenile attention seekers.

Things aren’t going to get any easier for the minority side in the Seanad with the news of Labour Senator Jimmy Harte’s resignation from the House on health grounds, leaving the Government short of another vote.

Fine Gael will be supporting Labour’s candidate in the ensuring byelection and hoping there won’t be any repeat of their McNulty Seanad election fiasco.

Hogan raises eyebrows as he ploughs into FF tent

Big Phil Hogan – or the Beef Mountain, as one wag called our European Commissioner for Agriculture during the week, processed regally around Ratheniska at the National Ploughing Championships on Thursday, every bit the cat who got the cream.

When he arrived at the ploughing he didn’t head for the European Union marquee. Instead, he marched straight into the Fianna Fáil tent next door. The staff inside were clearly taken aback. Robert Troy of Longford-Westmeath was the sole TD on duty and he nearly keeled over with the shock when he saw Hogan barrelling in. Then the surprised Fianna Fáilers remembered their manners and offered Big Phil a cup of tea, which he politely declined.

But could this be an omen of things to come after the election? A Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil coalition is now a hot favourite with the bookies – one betting chain has the unlikely alliance at 13/8.

The Taoiseach's continued insistence the election won't happen until next year isn't calming the nerves of jittery politicians fixated on a November race. The Coalition's lukewarm figures in this week's Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll would seem to have put the kibosh on a pre-Christmas run to the country, but only Enda knows the answer.

We hear the annual Fine Gael president’s dinner, normally held sometime in November, has been brought forward to October 17th. Nervous TDs are wondering if it’s yet another a sign.

Meanwhile, in Co Louth one political family is returning to the Fianna Fáil fold. The party holds its selection convention on Monday night, when there will be tributes to veteran TD Séamus Kirk, who is retiring after many years of service.

One candidate who won’t have to face a vote is Emma Coffey, granddaughter of former tánaiste Frank Aiken, one of the founding fathers of Fianna Fáil. As the only female candidate in a field of five she is automatically on the ticket. The party’s powerful national constituency committee informed all candidates this week that one man and one woman will stand in Louth.

Coffey, a Drogheda-based solicitor, recently joined Fianna Fáil and her rapid ascent hasn't pleased everyone. Drogheda barrister Anthony Moore, one of the four men chasing the remaining nomination, didn't hold back when he told Michael Reade on LMFM radio: "Whatever is happening at the moment, it's not democracy. I don't think they'd even do it in North Korea or China – at least they'd go through the motions of having an election."

Moore pointed out he had been a member of Fianna Fáil for 20 years while Coffey joined the party in recent months. He said Coffey should decline the party’s offer of a place on the ticket and throw her hat back in the ring with everyone else.

Coveney takes gold in fence-sitting

First prize in the fence-sitting (advanced) class at the ploughing was won by a Mr S Coveney from Cork for his illuminating exchange with Gavin Jennings on Tuesday's Morning Ireland.

Jennings: “Before I let you go: Frances Fitzgerald says she wants to lead. Do you?”

Coveney: “I mean, I think that’s a bit of a nonsense of a discussion, eh, there is no, em. . .

“Do you want to lead?”

“Well, at the moment I want to lead in my two ministries that I have a lot of responsibility in, both from an events perspective and certainly this week from an agriculture point. . .” (waffles on)

“I know, but that’s not what I’m asking. Do you want to lead the party? Do you want to lead the country?”

“It’s just not a factor in my thinking at the moment, to be honest, Gavin. I know you’re trying to create a bit of a story and a headline here. It’s not an issue.”

“To use the great Irish expression: I’m just trying to gather your intentions, Minister. Do you want to lead the country?”

“I think any politician who thinks too far ahead, you know, is likely to be disappointed.”

“One of your colleagues says she wants to lead, do you?”

“Well, I mean, you know, and, and you know, like, she’s an ambitious person, there’s lots of ambition in both Fine Gael and in government.”

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

“My ambition is to be the best Minister I can be between now and the election and that’s what I’m going to focus on.”

So that’s a clear yes from Simon.