Miriam Lord: Kenny continues search for the perfect model

Don’t hold back, Micheál, whatever you do. “You will say anything, Taoiseach, to get elected. You will say anything to cover up something. You will deny reality and the truth when it stares you in the face.

“Language means nothing to you. You break promise after promise believing that media management will take care of everything.”

Given the delicate circumstances, the Fianna Fáil leader was being a bit harsh on the Taoiseach.

Enda is still coming to terms with having been led up the garden path by a model only to be dumped before the election.

He had such high hopes when their relationship started, refusing to hear anything bad said against “this particular model” over the many years they were an item.

The pair had been inseparable.

It didn't matter what the others said: the IMO, the ESRI, KPMG, the Opposition and sundry members of Labour quietly muttering behind their hands.

Together, they would make it work – 'til Universal Health Insurance do they part.

Broken-hearted

As it turned out, they split up over the same health insurance.Yesterday, Enda was alone.

And the model wasn’t the only one missing. At times like this, the jilted and broken-hearted need a shoulder, a friend or friends to lend companionship, encouragement and support.

Allies who offer a comforting smile and fight their corner for them, if necessary.

They are the lieutenants who pass down scraps of paper with hastily scrawled advice on how to answer a question.

They make snide remarks at Opposition leaders and shout across the floor at TDs. They smirk and swagger.

Where were the Ministers yesterday? There was not one – of either Coalition stripe – in the chamber to buoy up the boss. A very, very rare occurrence.

It can happen that the Taoiseach might begin his session of Leaders’ Questions without the galvanising presence of a Cabinet colleague to signal team unity, but one or two will scuttle down the steps and sidle in beside him before long.

They couldn’t all have been out making good news announcements?

With 13 Dáil sittings between now and Christmas, it seems the Cabinet has decided to become its own version of an election Advent calendar: every day opening different doors to reveal an exciting new disclosure.

Buying Rubens

Heather Humphreys was busy saving the National Gallery yesterday. Even Denis O’Brien weighed in, with reports that the billionaire has purchased a Rubens for more than €2 million and is donating it to the State (and Denis isn’t even a member of the Cabinet).

Throughout Leaders' Questions, until the final minutes when two Labour junior ministers appeared, the Taoiseach sat on his own, shipping dog's abuse from Micheál Martin and not much better from Gerry Adams, who rechristened Fine Gael's famous Five Point Plan the "Five Point Scam" and excoriated his Government's record on health.Then he asked him to resign.

“You ask me to resign every couple of months,” harrumphed Enda.

By the time Independent Michael Fitzmaurice got up to complain about the "con job" that the Bank of Ireland is perpetrating on small business owners by making them swap cheques for a new debit card which skims off high transaction fees for the bank, the Taoiseach sounded like the fight was gone out of him.

He sighed about progress and how you hardly see a person inside a bank anymore.

But progress is exactly what the Taoiseach has to do. Move on and forget that particular model.

He tried to bear up, telling Micheál he is actively seeking another model. Apparently, there are lots of them out there, he just has to find the right one, the one with whom he can settle down and build a universal health insurance scheme.

The Fianna Fáil leader didn’t rate the Taoiseach’s chances. He says Enda is obsessed with models, but doesn’t know what he wants from any of them.

“Now the Taoiseach comes in here and says the Government is no longer doing ‘that’ model,” scoffed Micheál, having spent “10 years telling people that he was going to implement ‘that’ model”.

Apparently, they were going to settle down with universal health insurance and live happily ever after, but Enda did no research and had no blueprint to work from.

Not that this matters, concluded Micheál, it’s just words to sweeten the electorate: “Because you hadn’t a bull’s notion how you were going to get there and you still don’t, because you just talk about models and models.”

And there are plenty more of them in the sea.

The Taoiseach told the Dáil there are a number of models out there and “they will be examined now”.

He knows that somewhere out there is the perfect match, the ideal model which will abolish our two-tier medical system and introduce universal health care funded by universal insurance at a price the country can afford.

Sadly, he is now finished with “that model”.

“Your model,” Róisín Shortall reminded him.

"Your model is down the drain," chimed in Colm Keaveney, rubbing it in.

Enda conceded he had been keen on one particular model, but was sensible enough to take outside advice and end the relationship. So yes, it hadn’t worked out.

“ Yes, the Government commissioned the ERSI to do a body of work on the implications of funding in respect of a particular model of universal health insurance.

“Let me repeat – yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and is anybody infallible, Deputy Martin?” asked the Taoiseach, pointing to himself.

“Is anybody infallible?”

Anyway, said Enda, he dosen’t think much of Micheál Martin’s current squeeze in the health policy area.

“The deputy’s model is to increase tax and continue with an inefficient two-tier system.”

It was big of Enda to accept he had erred with his initial choice of model. And it isn’t every day that a Taoiseach admits he’s not infallible.

It was, perhaps, the best riposte he could give to Micheál’s charge that he doesn’t tell the truth.

Now, maybe the Taoiseach should give up all these notions about models.

Put an ad in Ireland’s Eye, that’s our advice.