Miriam Lord: House slowly implodes in pre-election lull

Every Easter weekend, the teachers’ unions go off for a few days to some hotel or other, looking for notice.

And they get it, too: acres of space in the papers and lengthy reports on news bulletins and hours of mind-numbing discussion on the morning radio shows.

Some teachers grow to believe that they attract all of this coverage because their pronouncements from the conference podium are of enormous importance. They enjoy the sort of blanket coverage which can give a person notions.

But there is a simple reason why they tend to get more column inches and airtime than all the other, equally newsworthy, representative bodies.

The teachers meet on Easter Monday, a bank holiday at the start of a slow week, when very little is happening elsewhere and news organisations are badly stuck for material to fill pages and airtime. They plug a gap.

Back in Kildare Street, it’s now the equivalent of a dull Easter weekend, with slim pickings on the political front.

Publicity-starved TDs take note.

Lucinda Creighton took to the plinth yesterday afternoon to demand that the Government publish the advice it was given by the Attorney General, Máire Whelan, on the setting-up of the IBRC commission.

She was rewarded with a very big media turnout.

She also got a question from the Irish Independent on whether, if she were pregnant and knew how things would turn out, she would abort Hitler.

Apparently, Republican presidential candidates in America are being asked this question.

“I haven’t followed that and thankfully I think the debate hasn’t descended to that low level in this country yet,” she replied, sounding a bit baffled.

But these things happen when things are quiet.

Leinster House is slowly imploding from lack of interest.

The Government has slapped a lid on the Dáil in the hope of smothering any opposition ruses or utterances which might cause possible embarrassment in the run-up to the election. (Although as it turns out for Fine Gael, all the trouble is bubbling up from its own ranks at the moment.)

The high point of proceedings yesterday was a series of tributes to a retiring member of the Oireachtas staff. Usher Bernard Hand, a very popular figure, got six rounds of applause as the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Ceann Comhairle, among others, sang his praises.

Get cracking

The low point – at least for those people under the impression that the Taoiseach was going to get cracking and introduce legislation to reform the Seanad, was his confirmation that nothing will happen this side of the election.

But he’s very happy for everyone to have a nice big debate about the issue.

Shane Ross was annoyed.

"Which means, of course, that Seanad reform is buried," complained the Winston Churchtown of Dublin South. "The Taoiseach will be well aware that many of us have been trotted around to his office twice in the past year for talks on Seanad reform. Is he going to confirm now that those talks have led to absolutely nothing and we'll have to go into the next electoral cycle before reform is considered?"

Enda was at pains to point out that all he ever promised anyone was an opportunity to debate a report which was prepared by former Seanad members and presented recently for consideration. There was quite a big deal made of it at the time, but now it appears to have been added to the growing pile of documents gathering dust somewhere in the vicinity of the Upper House.

“We have a number of reports and Bills that have been presented. We had a decision in 1979 in respect of the university panels and we had the reports in between,” said the Taoiseach, telling everybody what they already know.

But he never promised anything like legislation.

"What I did commit to was that there would be an opportunity to debate the report presented by a group of former people who served in the Senate with no personal interest in it other than their views as to how it might be improved, and I gave a commitment that we would have an opportunity to debate that here. I can't see a situation where we would have new legislation introduced in respect of the Seanad during this current Dáil."

Bits and bobs

Meanwhile, upstairs, Seán Conlan’s bits and bobs were being packed into crates in preparation for his departure from the party, and the party rooms. He resigned on Tuesday and will run in the election as an Independent. He told his local radio station that, when it comes to electricity pylons, “it is very important personally for me to be true to myself.” Fine Gael’s “5-a-side” group of young male politicians may have lost a compadre, but at least they won’t have to compound their loss by walking past him on the party corridor every day .

John Perry, on the other hand, is still a member of FG and very much in situ among his colleagues on the fifth floor.

He just happens to be taking a legal action against the party and will be lodging papers to that effect in the High Court today in an attempt to overturn the result of his selection convention, when he failed to get on the ticket.

Late yesterday afternoon, after a very confident-looking Perry returned to Leinster House to confirm the news, he took part in a vote and then took the lift to his rooms with a number of colleagues. On the way up, it stopped and the Taoiseach stepped in.

The doors closed and, as the lift went on up, a familiar voice piped up from the back.

“I’m in the High Court tomorrow, d’ya hear me?”

“All right, John. What time are you on at?” replied Enda, nonchalantly.

It remains to be seen if he’s as cool when the papers are lodged.

In these quiet times, everyone is agog to find out what Perry has up his sleeve.