Sitting in the press gallery above the Dáil chamber can be conducive to sweet daydreams, writes Kathy Sheridan
Last week, during Leaders' Questions, the unexplored potential of a telescopic cattle prod found its way into one such dream. The idea was simple. Every time the Taoiseach or a minion withheld a straight answer, employed silly euphemisms or made a stupid "joke", a trained officer would sound a warning buzzer. If within 30 seconds, the offender had not corrected himself and apologised, the officer would deliver a healthy belt of the cattle prod.
To further the cause of justice and democracy (justice seen to be done, power to the people, etc), footage of the shrieking offender would be mandatory on the evening news. Habitual perps would be confined for increasing periods to Leinster House, in a tiny, overheated room, equipped only with a television (minus volume control or off switch) on which the Leader waffled through the same "answer" over and over, in a Drumcondra version of Chinese torture. During this, the big car would be clamped, of course, and all fines, parking fees, drinks and meals would be charged at the normal, astronomical city-centre rates paid by "civilians" (as Liz Hurley describes non-celebrities) doomed to labour outside the public service cocoon.
This week, alas, there are no Leaders' Questions. The Government kindly awarded itself a week off. And why wouldn't it, what with the three-week Easter break but a memory and the three months' summer hols a back-breaking three weeks away? Anyway, I am persuaded that the cattle prod proposal would never get past the wimpy human rights crowd, so must consider alternatives. Emily O'Reilly's elevation to the Information Commissioner's office this week has huge potential, for example.
If it's the IC's job to extract information from recalcitrant public servants while delivering a sharp smack on the nose, is it not the most obvious idea in the world to extend her remit to the sitting Dáil? It could only work if sanctions were applied instantaneously, so the downside for the IC would be the obligation to sit through all the puff and waffle, poised to apply the metaphorical cattle prod. The upside, obviously, would be the spectacle of the pols cowering under her scathing interjections: "Taoiseach, answer the question that was asked. In English. NOW!"/"Willie, wipe that stupid smirk off and shut UP!"/"Charlie, we KNOW you are lying by omission . . . !"
Gosh, Betsy, they might even start accounting for themselves to the people who elected them.
If all this sounds a tad silly and extreme, try sitting in the Dáil for a day or two. Take just one example. Say you feel passionately about Ireland's role in a war, fought on the pretext that Iraq had WMD capable of being launched against the world in 45 minutes.
You are aware that in the US, two Senate committees have called joint hearings on whether the Bush administration misused intelligence information to make its case for war; in Australia, the defence minister has conceded that public confidence may require an indepen- dent inquiry; in Britain, two of Blair's senior ministers have resigned on the issue and that even the war-mongering Tories are insisting that Blair has serious questions to answer.
Bearing all that in mind, what explanation do we get from our Leader about our own role in the coalition of the willing? None. Only a tight-mouthed, Rambo-esque, "We are not going to apologise for any small role we might have played in helping to remove a dictator . . . " No attempt to address the sincere and sensible concerns of the majority of the population. Not even a pretence of intelligent analysis of a debacle whose stunningly shameless authors are already turning baleful eyes elsewhere. Not even the merest acknowledgement that decent people are waking up to the most shocking betrayal of trust by the leaders of some of the world's most powerful nations. As David Aaronovitch, one of the war's most fervent and vocal proponents, wrote in the Guardian a month ago : "If nothing [no WMD] is found, I as a supporter of the war will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere."
Last Wednesday, on one of the rare occasions when the Taoiseach is forced to account for himself in the forum to which the people elected him, he showed only disdain for them. Of course he didn't have to turn up at all on Thursday; that's his electioneering day. On Tuesday this week, in an exercise of staggering arrogance, he turned up to launch the Government's "progress" report, fully expecting a raft of senior political journalists to act as his personal, silent stenographers at a time of massive national unease. It took a row to change his mind.
What does all this tell us about the semi-detached mind-set of our elected servants? There is a leader to the east, Turkmenistan, I think, who has decreed that a year is now eight months long and April should be named after his mother.
Never sleep.