FF keen to keep score but Enda won't be pinned down, literally

DÁIL SKETCH :IS THAT a metaphor in your pocket Taoiseach, or are you just glad to see us? You have to hand it to Enda. He came up with a very neat solution to the problem faced by government politicians the world over: how to wriggle out of all those extravagant promises they make to voters in the heat of an election campaign.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has a list as long as his arm of the promises Enda made to the electorate. Now, he wants to know how many of them have been honoured.

In particular, Deputy Martin is dying to get the results of the report cards the Taoiseach said he was keeping on each and every one of his Ministers.

Micheál was very impressed when Enda declared over the airwaves, on more than one occasion, that he would be publishing these “performance scorecards” as a way of keeping Ministers on their toes.

We’re all dying to see them now.

But we won’t.

“You’re not going to see report cards published,” revealed Enda, breaking the sad news to a deeply dismayed Micheál.

In fact, his oft-stated intention had been nothing more than “a metaphor for engagement with all Ministers”.

Sitting next to him, Michael Noonan, the Metaphor for Finance, stifled a smile.

As one teacher speaking to another, the leader of the Opposition asked to see these famous report cards on the work of his Enda’s metaphors.

He recalled the Taoiseach pledging: “If they don’t do the business, you know I’ll deal with them”. Micheál was baffled.

"And now it's a metaphor . . . or something or other. And I'm really intrigued by this, Taoiseach, because that means we've got to go back through every interview you did – the Late Late,Matt Cooper, the whole lot of them – and work out: 'what's he really saying here? What does he mean? Can we believe it?' It sounded great on The Late Late Show," harrumphed Deputy Martin, inexplicably a stranger to the art of the election promise.

“It was great stuff, Taoiseach. It was great theatre, but that’s all it seems to have been.” Perhaps the ordeal of Fianna Fáil’s election meltdown has brought on Micheál’s amnesia. They say it’s a feature of post-traumatic stress.

Enda’s big swinging report card was a mere linguistic device. “It’s a metaphor for the bilateral meetings I have had with each Minister,” repeated the Taoiseach, without a hint of embarrassment. Clearly, he was listening and learning during his long years in opposition.

Their exchange took place during Questions to the Taoiseach. By the time Leaders’ Questions rolled around, Micheál returned once more to Enda’s indiscriminate use of metaphors.

He’s convinced that the spin-doctors and focus groups put him up to it.

And don’t get him started on “those famous 100 days” and the Fine Gael leader’s promise “to do redemptive politics”. Micheál reminded him of the various showy declarations made about retaining local health services.

Enda rolled his eyes . . .

“Taoiseach, days before the election you personally told the people of Ireland that you had a list in your pocket of hospital services which you will be keeping open . . . which hospitals were on that list?” Enda glowered. At least he would have glowered, but he doesn’t really know how to.

“Well, I’m getting a little bit fed up of you putting words in my mouth,” he nearly snarled, but snarling isn’t really his thing either. When he tries to sound menacing, people are inclined to giggle.

“Indicate to me what promises in respect of what hospitals I made that you can stand over. Tell me the promises that you’re talking about that I made.”

“I just did,” said Micheál.

“I am quite prepared to look the people of the country in the eye and tell them of what we found here when we took on Government,” said Enda.

But Deputy Martin kept up the barrage, accusing the Taoiseach of getting votes “on the basis of false promises” in a premeditated and deliberate way.

Something that never happened in any of the last three governments Micheál was in before his election trauma.

“Is the Taoiseach resiling from the promises? Is he denying he made the promises? Be honest about it. Be honest!” he shouted, jabbing the air and getting so worked up that his constituency colleague Jerry Buttimer was forced to heckle him again.

Jerry is really getting up Micheál’s nose. When Butsy needled Ducky – they’re big into nicknames in Cork South Central – during Taoiseach’s questions, the Fianna Fáil leader snapped “You shudda stayed in Killarney!” This time, as he began to get hot under the collar, Deputy Buttimer repeatedly called on him to “Respect the chair!” The Ceann Comhairle, as it turned out, wasn’t in the chair yesterday. He was in the Isle of Man, representing the Oireachtas at the island’s annual Tynwald celebration.

The heckling was too much for Ducky and he rounded on Butsy with a metaphor of his own.

“You’re the closest thing to a Jack Russell I’ve ever come across.” We bridled at this disgraceful slur on the memory of the late Bimbo Lord, the most intelligent and gentlemanly (before his operation) Jack Russell that ever stood on four bandy legs.

Micheál Martin should apologise immediately to Jack Russells everywhere, if he values his ankles.

Not metaphorically speaking.