Senator hopes taking to the bus will put campaign train wreck behind him

THE DUBLIN Writers Museum provided a fitting setting for the launch of David Norris’s presidential election campaign. He is, after all, a man of letters.

Which he has no intention of publishing.

And if you don’t like it, talk to his lawyers.

Yesterday, after weeks of (badly) ducking questions over why he couldn’t or wouldn’t publish these infamous letters, Norris told his media tormentors to back off.

He did it with a smile, and in the nicest possible way, of course. Will yis hit this brave, disabled, old campaigner, and him with the senior counsel in his arms? It’s never good when a candidate in a national election resorts to wheeling out the legal heavy artillery. But in David Norris’s case, it should have trundled over the hill a long time ago if he wanted to contain the damage to his campaign and his credibility.

After yet another mauling on the issue from Vincent Browne on Tuesday night – he sounded evasive when asked repeatedly to identify the legal sources advising him not to release the letters – a weary-looking Norris finally produced names and a legally worded statement based on their advice. The information came a good two months after the controversy first erupted and after the Senator emotionally withdrew from the contest, went to Cyprus to reflect and reconsider and then entered it again.

In all that time, he couldn’t come up with a way to explain what he explained in detail yesterday, even though his reputation and prospects were being put through the wringer over the letters.

The launch, held in the museum’s magnificent salon which now houses the Gallery of Writers, was strangely off-key. Despite the best efforts of the Norris campaign team to inject a note of election pizzazz, the atmosphere was tense. You could see the strain on the faces of some of his election workers and sense their worry during the question and answer session.

Loud music pumped into the room as the journalists gathered, surrounded by portraits and busts of great Irish writers. Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now and Put the Message in the Box spliced the funk with the fear. Moody blue lighting added a theatrical touch to the platform, which was framed by two ornamental columns.

Douglas Hyde, the first president of Ireland, watched Norris from the shadows on the far back wall; George Russell to his left and Samuel Lover to his right.

Norris walked confidently to the microphone. The blue lights did him no favours; he looked tired.

He read his speech, booming voice filling the room, its delivery reminiscent of the one he gave on the steps of his home when he pulled out of the contest.

But, in reality, his words were flying above the journalists’ heads to the richly stuccoed ceiling above, with its exuberant frieze of gilded cherubs and peacocks. The media was waiting for the questions, not least because a new controversy had appeared overnight. For 16 years, Norris drew a disability allowance from Trinity College Dublin after he stopped working there and while he was a full-time senator.

Journalists tried to question him on the development at an engagement earlier in the morning, but he avoided them.

The Joycean scholar, who has brought his very successful one-man show to many world capitals, outlined his manifesto before building up to the Big Finish.

“What a journey this has been so far!” he quivered, looking around and smiling.

“There is another journey that begins today.

“The last part of the journey has 20 days to go.

“It will be the best part of all.

“Come along with me. It will be worth it!” he cried, with a sweep of his arm.

“Let’s change Ireland for the better!” he bellowed.

And he raised his chin triumphantly, that smile again, scanning his audience, looking around, waiting to hear the cheers that would inevitably greet his performance.

There was total silence. Even his supporters kept quiet, maybe too preoccupied with the grilling to come.

He looked around. Hand slightly raised, swivelling from side to side, smiling expectantly until the smile froze in the silence. The only sound was the clicking of camera shutters.

Norris spoke, because it didn’t look like anyone else would. “And I’m sure some of you may have some questions . . . ” They did.

There followed a bizarre series of questions about the nature of his permanent disability, whether he had hepatitis A,B,C, D or E (blasted letters again) and his fitness to do the job given that he is “disabled”. Some of it got so personal – on both sides – one wondered if he was going to be asked to produce his liver and slap it up on the platform for general inspection.

Did he think it was acceptable to draw disability payment while he was a serving Senator? “I think you’ll find there are disabled people in all the parliaments of Europe,” replied Norris, adding that this was a great thing, which it is.

But that wasn’t the question. He said later that times were different when he reached his agreement with Trinity and he would have a different attitude to the situation now.

In respect of the clemency letters, Norris was on firmer ground yesterday.

Although, as he read his legal argument to the floor and explained his case, the reception he got from the journalists who have been listening to him on this subject since July was somewhat chilly.

No matter. He had his line – nothing more to say on the letters, and him with the senior counsel in his arms.

It was short QA. A handler made “wind-it-up-now!” gestures after about 20 minutes. The team went outside, opened the door nearest their man and waited.

He made to leave, but kept talking. Another couple of journalists shouted questions, David smiled, opened his mouth but suddenly, the music was cranked up to nightclub proportions. Nobody could hear a word and Norris exited, stage left, smiling and thanking everybody for coming.

Brian Kennedy’s Put the Message in the Box blared over the speakers – the aural equivalent of a Vaudeville hook, dragging Norris away.

He left in his spiffing blue double-decker bus, hoping to have left behind the train wreck of his early campaign and put those accursed letters and disability payments in the box.