Twenty-five years ago, in October 1979, I got a call from Charles Haughey inviting me to an event in Dublin's Burlington Hotel the following Friday, writes Vincent Browne.
He was to deliver an important speech. I went along and met him in the foyer. He gave me his script and I read it in his presence. I remember only two things about the speech. It had something to do with 1916 and it appeared to me to say nothing at all of consequence. I told him I wasn't going to waste a good night away from the pub. He expressed a vivid disapproval of my attitude. Off I went.
That speech was widely viewed by political commentators at the time as of major significance, a coded challenge to the then Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch, who was in the United States at the time it was delivered. Messages were flashed to Lynch in New York about it. He came back and resigned a few days later.
It could be that the speech had deeper meanings than I perceived but afterwards, whenever anyone recalled the speech as a turning point in the careers of Jack Lynch and Charles Haughey, they have never been able to explain what of significance it contained.
I am not now dredging this up to suggest that Charles Haughey was a man of little substance, for certainly I believe the opposite. Rather my point is that perhaps I missed the point and I should be careful about too hasty dismissals of Burlington Hotel speeches.
I write this because on last Friday night another speech was delivered in the Burlington Hotel. Again I have failed to perceive anything whatsoever of substance or significance in it. Actually, my view is that by comparison, Charles Haughey's Burlington speech of 25 years ago was on a par with the Gettysburg address. Perhaps I am mistaken (again).
The speech was delivered at what was called a Fine Gael presidential dinner and the speaker was the president of Fine Gael, Enda Kenny. Here are some extracts.
"We will give people real change [ after the next election], because we will give them honest government. A government that actually believes. Believes in the possibilities of our shared life. Believes in society and collective opportunity. That's a government that believes not what they can do for the people or what the people can do for them, but in what we can achieve when we work together, towards a common end. The government and the citizen, side by side.
"I am convinced that the next government must be brave enough, daring enough, to be intuitive, insightful and compassionate - and that compassion must have a hard edge.
"The first Rainbow Government, where [ Labour's] Pat Rabbitte and I worked side by side, produced the first budget surplus this country had seen in 25 years. Remember, it was the first Rainbow Government - a most cohesive Government - that laid the foundations for what was to become the Celtic Tiger.
"When the very existence of this State was under attack after the murder of Veronica Guerin, we didn't talk. We did what we were elected to do: we acted. We set up the Criminal Assets Bureau and brought the thugs to heel . . .
"We can make Ireland the best place to be born, the best place to be educated, the best place to rear our children, run our business, the best place to grow old. That's my vision for Ireland . . .[ Fine Gael] always in the interest of the people.
"Our people. Our country. Our future."
I'm glad I missed the excruciation of that one. Giving the people "real change", being "brave enough, daring enough, intuitive, insightful, compassionate", "our people, our country, our future". How do they get the words out of their mouths?
The big idea here is not an idea at all, at least not an idea that makes any sense at all. It is the one about the people and Government being in partnership? What does he think the Government is, an entity separate from the people, whose surrogate it is?
Does he really believe the existence of the state was under attack at the time that [ journalist] Veronica Guerin was murdered? And what is this about bringing the "thugs" to heel? What thugs? What heel? The investigation of the murder of Veronica Guerin was a fiasco and the biggest thugs in the country have never even seen the heel of a law enforcement agency.
Does he really believe the Rainbow Government brought us the Celtic Tiger?
But what is this stuff about compassion having a "hard edge"? Does this mean anything and if it does, what does it mean?
And as for Fine Gael making Ireland the best place to be born? The party which enthusiastically supported a constitutional change to deprive children born here of the right to citizenship?
This kind of tosh is commonplace in our political lingo in Ireland and it is not just a bore. It devalues political debate and political choice. It dulls whatever energy there is around, politically. It should be criminalised.