Olivia Mitchell: ‘People are very bitter and you can’t blame them’

Strip away TD fuzzy talk of friendship and loyalty and what remains is a ferociously competitive sole trader. Running mates are dispatched, a dear leader might be threatened, and those lean and hungry pretenders kept at bay. Then a quota must be coaxed out of an electorate, one that is increasingly allergic to traditional politics and politicians.

Not only has Olivia Mitchell done all that, with some grace and discretion, but she is one of the few for whom politics has not ended in failure – not in the electoral sense, anyway.

The Fine Gael TD, who announced her retirement from politics this week after 18 years in Dublin South, still looks like the quintessentially south county, Mount Anville economics teacher she once was. "The best minister we never had," remarks one longtime Oireachtas observer.

Politicians can never quite grasp the concept of voluntary exits. “I’m surprised – I thought she’d want to beat Alan Shatter out the gate one last time,” grinned another observer. About that relationship? “We stay out of each other’s way pretty much,” she says. With a big smile.

Back in the corridors, the best guess was that Mitchell feared a humiliating loss next time out, given the reconfigured constituency, reduced from five seats to three. But that’s not it. “Fine Gael and others who do polls showed I would be re-elected,” she says. “Nothing is certain in an election, of course, but that was not a consideration in my decision”.

The fact is, she is 68 and hasn’t the same energy as 30 years ago. “I always felt I’d know when it was the right time to go and that I would make the decision myself.” There is little sense of sadness or regret, but there is a palpable relief, which she puts down to the fact that the news is out.

The new era requires a particular kind of energy. A lot of the traditional door-knocking, leaflet-dropping, meet-the-people style of communication has gone to social media. Mitchell uses it – “a little bit”.

“I’m not as comfortable with it. I don’t like admitting that, but it’s the truth. There are times when it can be hard to make a connection with a person, even through email, to really convey what you’re trying to say.”

Disturbing vitriol

Sometimes the vitriol on social media “is very disturbing, because you begin to think, ‘is everyone like this?’ They’re not even about me sometimes, but when I accidentally scroll on and see the stuff directed even against people in opposition to me, I would be horrified.”

She understands the origins and depth of people’s anger. “A lot of people were badly hurt in the economic collapse and a lot of them will never recover. People in their 50s who lost their jobs and may never work again . . . It wasn’t just money that was lost; an awful lot of dignity was lost. A lot of people are very bitter and you can’t blame them, to be honest. It will take a long time for people to feel secure again, even about any good news even.”

Mitchell doesn’t say so, but the fact that her husband, Jimmy, a civil engineer who took early retirement in 2010 (“and who has been great in every sense for me”) worked in construction all his life, must have provided additional insights.

And then, for the umpteenth time, she repeats : “But we ARE recovering . . . ”

The Dáil at 50

When Mitchell entered the Dáil in 1997, she was setting out on a demanding new career at the age of 50. She was able to go for it, she says, because youngest child, Leah, was doing the Leaving Cert. Only when asked about her other two children does she mention that the oldest, Robbie, who was 40 last week, was born with severe mental and physical disabilities. He lived at home until he was 16.

“I wouldn’t want to pretend it was easy,” she says. “It’s never easy. Robbie was not an easy child. But – and I really don’t want to sound sanctimonious here – it’s only looking back now that I can definitely see that it changed how we operated as a family.”

Mitchell is acutely conscious of their luck in getting a residential place for Robbie in Cheeverstown House. “He’s more contented now than he was as a child, happy and well looked after. But I know the strain on families is enormous. . . . There just aren’t enough resources. There is a huge lack of residential facilities. An awful lot of people can be kept at home if you get the right kind of support, but some people just can’t”.

She talks feelingly about ageing parents trying to cope with physically disabled adult children who may also have psychological problems. “That impacts on the other children and sometimes you see families break up. I’ve seen complete family breakdown where all the children have to be placed in care. Parents are heroic in their struggle.”

She also talks feelingly about the children who didn’t get the services they desperately needed in the early years and for whom “there is no second chance”.

There is no doubt about Mitchell’s sincerity, yet she had a voice in a system that presided over this unforgiveable outcome.

“We were beginning to come to grips with it in the Celtic Tiger years,” she says, slowly. “But the money just hasn’t been there. Am I angry? I suppose my anger was that the [collapse] was allowed to happen. We have to deal with the situation now, try to get out of this hole, ensure it never happens again. The practical woman in me would ask what is the point of harking back saying ‘if only’. It’s not productive.”

It is this same "don't look back" attitude that enables Mitchell to look almost convincing when she claims she holds no grudge against Enda Kenny for excluding her from ministerial office in 2011. She had always been a shadow spokesperson. She lists off the appointments, from transport to environment to health. "Then there was arts, sports and tourism, then after that . . . " pregnant pause . . . "nothing."

Of course, her card was marked when she joined the Richard Bruton-led heave to oust the leader in 2010. Still, isn't it remarkable that others in that coterie have since flourished in high office? She gamely insists she does not feel excluded and, indeed, is "enjoying" her work on the foreign affairs committee and the Council of Europe.

As to why she was excluded, well, maybe the Taoiseach “was looking at giving jobs to people who were going to be around longer than I was,” she suggests. Mitchell was 63 then; what age was Michael Noonan again? “Yeah, well, I suppose Michael is the exception to that rule all right,” she says with a rueful laugh.

Is she still delighted to have participated in the heave? Another laugh.

“Delighted would be the wrong word. At the time, it was the right thing. The polls were telling us Fianna Fáil would be re-elected, and the public were telling us we needed a change of leader. Then, when the IMF arrived, the public changed their mind. I think that was when they really grasped there was no quick fix to this.”

In any event, the heave left its mark. “As far as I was concerned, there was no animosity. But I know Enda was very upset”.

And now it turns out that Enda was a great leader after all. “Look – the evidence is there. He was a great Taoiseach in my view. He turned the country around.”

Best politicians

Serving as a stand-in for the Ceann Comhairle has given Mitchell a particular overview of Irish parliamentarians and the inane, confrontational nonsense that often passes for debate – although she also blames the media for promoting that image.

Her list of exemplary parliamentarians includes Richard Bruton ("always issue-based, always policy-driven rather than politics-driven"); Billy Timmons, a FG defector to Renua ("always really got to the nitty gritty of legislation"); Clare Daly ("I don't agree with what she's saying but I'm in awe of her as a great parliamentarian"); and Richard Boyd Barrett ("he has done the research and he articulates it well"), plus Jan O'Sullivan, Frances Fitzgerald, Leo Varadkar.

It’s hard to imagine Olivia Mitchell in retirement. In a Dáil cafe, people come over to wish her well, looking slightly puzzled. Her reply is always the same: her heart told her it was time to go. Two of her three children – Danny, a high-flyer in finance, and Leah, a lawyer – are married and living in London. Time to enjoy the six young grandkids.

Time to make room for the young pretenders.