Leo the Second is hosting a lunch for family and friends in the private diningroom in Leinster House to mark his return to the taoiseach’s office on Saturday. The time has flown by, what with all the controversies.
He will be entertaining quite a large number of guests. We hope they won’t be reduced to wooden knives and forks on this very special occasion.
Maybe Michael D could send the new Taoiseach back from the Áras with some of the good cutlery in light of worrying news on the Kildare Street catering front this week.
An email went out to all staff aka “members of the parliamentary community” on Thursday with an urgent plea for the return of missing tableware.
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“Due to the removal of cutlery/mugs from the self-service [restaurant] there is now a serious shortage of these items. This is causing issues for the catering team in providing service… I would ask that you return these items as a matter of urgency.”
It’s a situation which will probably resolve itself after all the Government job announcements are done. By all accounts this should not take very long as it is generally accepted that the most boring reshuffle in the history of Irish politics will involve discommoding only a small handful of junior Ministers. So all the knives that were filched to stick in political backs in the run-up to this non-event should be back next week.
The Coalition leaders’ annoyingly late swap-over summit on Friday night kept politicians and journalists guessing the destination of those few minor ministerial baubles well into the night. They seemed to be enjoying keeping the mystery going – could they spring a major surprise?
The persistent rumour that the new Taoiseach might not announce his junior line-up on the same day as his Cabinet wee-shuffle was upsetting people hoping to have a politics-free Christmas. And it’s prolonging the agony of those who think they may get the chop and those who fervently expect to be bumped up.
“Micheál Martin did all his announcements at the same time. Leo had better do the same,” fumed one Government backbencher on Friday.
Meanwhile, the name of who will be Ireland’s next attorney general was still taxing legal minds above in the Law Library.
Favourites in the final furlong of the race to succeed Paul Gallagher were Senior Counsel Eoin McCullough, Remy Farrell and Rossa Fanning SC.
Mick Wallace and Clare Daly have made quite a name for themselves in the European Parliament.
But not in a way which most of the voters who put them there would have wanted. The two MEPs were widely criticised earlier this year when they voted against an overall European Parliament resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have continued to insist that poor put-upon Russia isn’t entirely to blame for Vladimir Putin’s savage war on a sovereign nation.
But for all Mick’s jaw-dropping statements about the need to show more understanding to the leaders of despotic regimes struggling to keep on oppressing in the face of capitalist interference, his recent pronouncements on the protests in Iran were mind-boggling.
Hundreds of people, including children, have already died in a vicious crackdown on the women-led protests which swept the country following the death in police custody of a young woman arrested by the morality police because her hijab didn’t cover enough of her hair. Thousands have been arrested, executions are ongoing but the courageous protesters are not backing down.
Yet in Wallace’s world, Iran is “under attack” by western leaders trying to oust the ruling regime through an intense media propaganda campaign. The violence and destruction carried out by some of the demonstrators “would not be tolerated anywhere” he told the parliament.
It’s a lonely place now for Wallace, the MEP for Ireland South, and Daly, the MEP for Dublin, whose hardline ideological views have been almost universally condemned in Ireland and in Brussels.
But they are sincere (and also very lucky to live in a democracy where they can freely express their views) and feel they are misunderstood because of the way the “establishment” media have reported their utterances.
They recently invited a group of staff from Leinster House to visit them in Brussels and find out more about the political work they do and how the EU Parliament works.
About 15 Oireachtas staffers, including ushers, canteen workers and people from the printing room, were welcomed to the Berlaymont by Mick and Clare, who gave them a talk on what they do. They then toured the buildings, finding out about how the European Parliament runs behind the scenes. The group from Leinster House was joined by a large contingent from the Ballybough Boxing Club, also invited by Mick and Clare.
The MEPs tried to explain their stance on Ukraine to their guests.
“They said their words were misinterpreted by the press and they regretted that they might have said the wrong thing at the wrong time because they don’t believe in war,” said one guest afterwards. “I’m not really sure if that many of us were convinced.”
The trip lasted for three days. On the Friday evening, Mick Wallace invited the two groups – minus the younger members of the boxing club – to a cheese and wine party in his city apartment. They were impressed by his lodgings, which has high ceilings and a full-length window which opens on to a small balcony with a beautiful view of a castle.
By accounts, it was a very enjoyable evening with about 40 or so guests enjoying his hospitality. Clare Daly was also present.
“They were very good hosts. Clare was really lovely to everyone.”
The wine served came from the vineyard in Italy’s Piedmont region once owned by former developer Mick but now the property of his brother. There was a selection of cheese and olives and sourdough bread and the former TD for Wexford cut the Italian hams and salamis with a large meat slicer. We hear some of the lads nipped into the nearby Lidl to buy cans of beer, having been forewarned that good wine might be the only tipple on offer.
The Oireachtas contingent believe they are the first group of non-political workers from Leinster House invited to join an EU-funded educational visit to the other parliament in Brussels. They say the trip was informative and useful and well worth the time.
“Fair play to Mick and Clare. At least they did think of us, and that was good.”
On Friday, the European Parliament held one of its occasional lunches in the capital for Dublin MEPs to meet members of the media.
There wasn’t a great turnout from the elected representatives, but we hear the journalistic element more than held their own at the event in the Clarence Hotel.
Ciarán Cuffe of the Greens and Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews were the two out of Dublin’s four MEPs who attended. They both spoke after the lunch, with Barry remarking that because of Brexit, MLAs can’t attend the European Parliament in Brussels. So he has been regularly bringing out delegations of them from Northern Ireland for briefings.
And he noted that besides his usual complement of MLAs from Sinn Féin, the UPP, the Alliance Party and the rest, he had an MLA from the DUP travel with his most recent delegation.
Meanwhile, at the end of his address, Ciarán said Irish MEPs were fielding questions here and in Europe about the woman involved in the alleged Qatar bribery scandal which has rocked the EU. The parliament’s vice-president, Eva Kaili, was sacked from her position after she was arrested on Sunday by Belgian police and charged with corruption.
They keep asking the same question: “Who is this Aoife Kiely?
The conditions weren’t exactly balmy on Thursday when a selection of Senators and TDs fulfilled a promise made during the summer and returned to Mountjoy Prison to take on a team of inmates in a GAA challenge match.
It was organised by Senator Lynne Ruane and Dublin football great, Philly McMahon, and it followed on from a soccer match between the politicians and the prisoners in July.
The result was the same for both games – the politicians were hammered.
Before the teams lined out in the smaller of the two exercise yards, the visitors from Leinster House had a discussion on drugs with the governor, Edward Mullins, and a number of other people from the prison.
It was a game of two very short halves, as everyone was freezing cold. However, even with the full-time whistle sounding after not much more than 20 minutes, the home side ran up 10 goals and two points against the politicians’ respectable five goals and six points. The away team got to choose the referee, but they still couldn’t win.
Sinn Féin’s Thomas Gould of Cork North Central was in charge of the whistle. “He was rubbish” was the verdict from Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who was blaming the heavy defeat on “too many culchies insisting on putting the ball over the bar” and a ref who was far too fair.
When the two teams clashed in the soccer fixture, Fianna Fáil Senator Lisa Chambers was named woman of the match. She was woman of the match again on Thursday, because she was the only one who togged out this time.
There were two stoppages when balls hit the fence and burst on the barbed wire. An RTÉ documentary team filmed the action.
The politicians who played were TDs Gary Gannon (Soc Dems), Pádraig O’Sullivan (Fianna Fáil), Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) and Darren O’Rourke, Martin Browne, Paul Donnelly, Mark Ward and Ruairi Ó Murchú, all from Sinn Féin, and Senators Lynne Ruane (Trinity), John McGahon (FG), Lisa Chambers and Shane Cassells of Fianna Fáil.
