Fine Gael manifesto launch:Fine Gael is all about family. Its commitment to family, said the leader, is "the critical point of difference" between it and the other lot. "It's hard-working families that built up this economy."
"There's one vote gone," snorted a journalist, "speaking as a hard-working single who's built up this economy". Ah, but cynics and singles aside, who would deny a dig-out to struggling families? Although naturally, some families are more special than others.
To get to the noon manifesto launch, we passed through the Graves Room of the venerable old Royal College of Physicians, apt location for a party liable to come over all faint at the mere mention of one particular family, the famously lucky recipient of several unorthodox "dig-outs".
It seemed to us that the really "critical point of difference" so far is that while the media grinds away at the issue, losing friends and influencing no one in particular, and the little PDs commit virtual hara-kiri in their efforts to recapture the high ground, Fine Gael averts its maidenly gaze, has a sniff of the smelling salts and murmurs "omerta" in the guise of "making this election more about politics than personalities", as its leader repeated yesterday.
"People on the doorsteps don't want to know," said one Fine Gaeler. "When it comes up we try to move it along, fast." So the main Opposition party will trot out only what the voters want to hear. It was John Bowman, no less, amid all the high-flown, high-finance questions (yes, we'll get to those), who asked whether Enda had "really" had a conversation with PD spokesman Mark Costigan about a "major explosion" due to happen on Day 21 of the campaign.
Enda was suddenly animated. "This complete and utter shambles of a Government" had brought paranoia to a new level, he said, explaining he accosted Costigan, a former journalist, last Tuesday and asked him how he was getting on "with this shambles of a Government". In case Costigan was missing the point, Enda illustrated his thesis by mentioning the 100,000 thirsty Galwegians and the criminal who called Ireland on his mobile from Portlaoise prison. When poor Costigan was finally released, his ears ringing with the message that "D Day" would be in three weeks' time - "by which I meant polling day", said Enda, practically rolling his eyes - the PDs had somehow got the message Fine Gael was planning something sinister for Day 21.
If this was the sort of thinking that was going on in those circles, he declared, "well, really, the PDs are very, very afraid of Enda Kenny", a sentiment which triggered the first decent round of applause among the footsore Fine Gael worthies.
As for Noel Ahern's allegation that "someone high up in Fine Gael" was responsible for the damaging leaks from the Mahon tribunal, well, "nobody in the Fine Gael party is behind any leaks from the Mahon tribunal", said Enda definitively. And that terrible trio, Cowen, Martin and Dermot Ahern, who also pointed the finger at Fine Gael? If they "really, really want to know" where the leaks are coming from, "they should point the finger at someone across the Cabinet table".
But how do you know, Enda ? "I know what I know and I see what I see." Yeah, but . . . "Who has been tearing pages out of department files and handing them to journalists?" Yum, went the assembled worthies, beaming from ear to ear, that's an easy one (for a change). And didn't Mary O'Rourke herself say it last October, mused one afterwards? That the leaks were nothing to do with the media, but were "closer to home"? Within 30 minutes, Enda was on radio pointing the finger at Michael McDowell.
Did someone say "politics not personalities"? Before all that, of course, Fine Gael launched its rather attractive manifesto: more teachers, buses, beds and home helps; tonnes more medical cards, bigger pensions, fairer taxes, cleaner hospitals, a new deal for pre-schoolers, paid leave for fathers, "a less rigid" benchmarking system to facilitate the nurses. All bookended by Accountability and Responsibility. Enda will personally fire himself if it doesn't work out.
Yeah but . . . three years ago in Killarney, you were saying your gripe with benchmarking was not flexibility but transparency, that public servants had done too well? Well, he assumed there would be "increased efficiencies" in return, but it never happened. George Lee, the numbers whizz, was only halfway through the 91-page manifesto and had already counted 569 promises. It probably adds up to 1,000 in total. So how do we know which ones we'll be voting for, when many have not been agreed with the coalition partners? "These are proposals in the Fine Gael programme. Obviously all of them are not going to be implemented within the five-year period."
Well, how many of your promises will have to fail before you fire yourself? "None will fail," he declared, in what may be one of those read-my-lips moments. He did acknowledge, though, that the 2,300 extra hospital beds "is a serious challenge". And the extra gardaí. Already?
