“Misogyny. Misogyny is what was mentioned earlier,” Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy bellowed into the Opposition din at the height of those rowdy scenes in the Dáil on Tuesday afternoon.
Verona wasn’t levelling the charge herself. She was saying this is what she heard from government TDs condemning the Opposition’s treatment of her when the Michael Lowry speaking rights hustle was being forced through the Dáil.
Ah, lads.
Of course, they have form.
They thundered angrily about their meek Taoiseach not even attempting a mention of Nikita Hand while Donald Trump lauded Conor McGregor in front of him in the Oval Office. Some of them, it was rumoured, threatened to decamp to the independent benches over the marked lack of women in senior and junior ministerial jobs.
And their passionate contributions during the Dáil debate marking International Women’s Day would still be fresh in our memories had the men with such keen noses for misogyny made any.
It’s funny really, the way the thing that suddenly gets them all concerned about the treatment of woman and has them dropping the “m” word with abandon is something that directly concerns themselves and their political parties and the stability of the Government of which they are members.
“Comments have been made about the unpleasantness of the protests yesterday – I even heard some claims of misogyny, which I found extremely cynical, from one of the most male-dominated governments on the planet. It strikes that the Ceann Comhairle is a woman who knows her own mind,” People Before Profit-Solidarity’s Ruth Coppinger said on Wednesday.
She’s right. What Verona got this week was an equal opportunities monstering from all members of the Opposition. Previous cinn comhairle – all men – have also been subjected to ballyragged and barracked by angry TDs, but while government deputies roundly condemned what happened to them the Opposition was never accused of sexism against them.
Ceann comhairle John O’Donoghue had a nightmare on his first working day in the job back in 2007. The then Opposition goaded him into meltdown over, surprise, surprise, the deal struck by Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fáil with certain independents to get into government after the general election.
And Enda Kenny, then Fine Gael leader, made the politician known as The Bull O’Donoghue blow his top with references to the deal done by then taoiseach Ahern with Jackie Healy-Rae (father of Michael and Danny) in return for him supporting his government.
How they laughed and roared and yahooed as the Kerry-based ceann comhairle tried to control opposition TDs, who completely ignored him. “Well, I’m sure you’d want to know what Healy-Rae got yourself,” Enda needled.
The episode has parallels to current events. Along with Healy-Rae, the two other independent politicians in the limelight for cutting deals worth “hundreds of millions of euro” were Finian McGrath (incidentally now seen as mentor of one of the Lowry crew, Barry Heneghan) and … trumpet fanfare … Michael Lowry.
The opposition continued roaring as Enda told the chair he had no power in Kerry and “you’ve no power up here”.
The Bull O’Donoghue was apoplectic.
“Quiet now. You’re only new in the job,” the leader of the opposition taunted.
The ceann comhairle leapt to his feet. “You won’t say ‘Quiet’ to me, sir!” he snapped, red-faced and raging.
And it went gloriously downhill from there.
Disgraceful display of misandry against a defenceless Kerryman.
She’s only a lady standing up in her place of work
And speaking of Kerrymen and misogyny, such a charge could never be levelled against Michael Healy-Rae, who was deeply, deeply upset and concerned over the disgraceful and noisy disrespect shown to Verona Murphy on Tuesday.
And her a laydee.
“Just remember, who are they shouting and roaring at? At a lady, who was standing up in her place of work …You had a lady in her place of work, standing up. The rules say that when the Ceann Comhairle is standing, everybody else is to sit down but they all literally stood up and they were shouting and roaring at a woman at her place of work. I think it’s wrong” he told Virgin Media’s Kieran Cuddihy on Wednesday.
Michael held his hands up: he hasn’t always been the best behaved. When the last ceann comhairle would tell him to resume his seat, he might be a bit “slightly hesitant”, but he would have to sit down. “I would do what I was told.”
Refusing to sit down and causing chaos? “You can’t do that!”
We must have been dreaming about all those times the Healy-Rae brothers caused ructions by roaring and shouting and refusing to sit down.
As for shouting at a lady?
Michael must have forgotten in November 2020 when the then leas-cheann comhairle Catherine Connolly was in the chair and she was forced to suspend the house because he refused her many requests for him to resume his seat.
And the time his brother Danny refused to sit down in April 2023 when Verona Murphy was standing-in for the ceann comhairle. Danny didn’t just stay on his feet, he sang at her as well.
A few lines from the song Skibbereen.
Verona mentioned her stand-in days when she was elected in December, having been asked to consider running for the job by Michael Lowry.
“Generally, my time in the Chair passed without incident, with the exception of the day a certain Kerry TD decided to serenade me with a poor rendition of a Cork song – figure that. At least his phone was turned off. I believe this experience has prepared me for the position.”
What would Gertie say?
Eoin Hayes, the lesser spotted deputy for Dublin Bay South, has a special family connection with the Dáil stretching back 75 years.
The first-time TD, who was suspended from the Social Democrats parliamentary party after giving incorrect information about shares he held in a software company that supplies the Israeli military, remains in political limbo for the foreseeable future.
The urbane business consultant was the toast of the Soc Dems after his stunning win in November’s general election when he ousted Sinn Féin’s Chris Andrews to take the fourth and final seat in the constituency.
However, when it emerged the following month that he didn’t dispose of his shares in Palantir Technologies until after he secured his seat on Dublin City Council last June, he colleagues moved swiftly to distance themselves from their new TD before the first meeting of the 34th Dáil.
Eoin sits as an independent on the edge of the chamber beside Kerry’s Danny Healy-Rae – also on his own because his brother and soldier-in-arms, Michael, occupies one of the ministerial seats on the Government benches across the floor.
Deputy Hayes has yet to speak in the Dáil. He says he intends to do so shortly.
The question is, what would Eoin’s Granny Gertie make of all this?
Gertie O’Reilly sounds like a remarkable woman for her time. In the 1940s, she was the first woman newspaper reporter in Mayo and Sligo. She broke into the trade because her father was a reporter with the Western People and she was determined to follow in his footsteps.
In 1949, she landed a job in Dublin as a general reporter with the Irish Press and in 1950 was admitted to the hallowed ranks of reporters on the Oireachtas Press Gallery, the first woman to get a Dáil press card.
How would she report on her grandson’s travails in Leinster House?
“I’m not too sure what she would write about that, but I do know that she would have been very proud of me getting elected to Dáil Éireann,” says Eoin, who is clearly very proud of his grandmother.
Not that Gertie – or Gertrude as she is on her gallery pass – would have much to write about. Eoin has yet to make his maiden speech in the House, but in the meantime he is getting to grips with constituency work.
He is reluctant to speak about his situation with the Social Democrats, where he remains in purgatory. The party recently indicated that there is “no timeline” for a decision on his readmission and he remains suspended indefinitely.
His grandmother got her press gallery pass 75 years ago this month and met her pharmacist husband later that year. She left her job and moved to rural Sligo where they set up a pharmacy.
“If you knew her, she was a formidable woman in what was very much a man’s world. I have a lot of fond memories of her,” Eoin says.
Gertie MacHale (née O’Reilly) was writing her memoirs when she died in 2014 at the age of 94.
You can’t talk politics here, lads
Journalists working in Leinster House know it is forbidden to interview TDs or Senators on the premises or do impromptu “doorstep” type interviews.
But since the new Dáil returned for business in January, that rule has morphed into a very unsettling and rather worrying situation where reporters are being told they cannot talk politics with Oireachtas members in the public areas of Leinster House.
It’s quite bizarre.
We know of at least three examples in recent weeks when journalists, in normal conversation with a TD, have been approached by members of the security staff and told they are not allowed to discuss political matters with an elected member.
One reporter was sitting on one of the blue banquettes at the bottom of the main staircase, talking to a new TD who had just introduced himself, when an usher approached and asked if they were talking about politics. And if so, to desist.
“Not to talk at all?” the astonished reporter asked.
“No.”
Then there was the journalist chatting to the Tánaiste one night in the same area a couple of weeks later. An usher butted into their conversation and said they couldn’t talk about politics there.
They couldn’t talk all right – they couldn’t because their jaws were stuck to the carpet.
And again, only this week, we hear of another colleague interrupted by an usher while speaking to a TD in that area, which is at a busy intersection of corridors where people often congregate.
This time, the reporter in question politely said they could talk to whoever they liked about whatever they liked.
Someone in authority in Leinster House needs a crash course on the meaning of “the corridors of power” and how they work.
