It’s all go at Government Buildings this weekend as the final few departments holding out for a better budget allocation slug it out with money Ministers Jack Chambers and Paschal Donohoe.
Talks, in keeping with tradition, are expected to go down to the wire. But despite the rush this year to get deals done and dusted before budget day on Tuesday, a truce between demanding Ministers and their finance overlords has been declared for Sunday afternoon.
Nothing will happen in Merrion Street while the Dublin Senior Club Football semi-finals are happening in Parnell Park. Or, to be specific, while the semi-final game between Kilmacud Crokes and Na Fianna is under way.
Oscar Donohoe, son of Minister for Finance Paschal, is part of the Na Fianna squad and has lined out at corner back for the Glasnevin club on numerous occasions. Oscar, who has represented Dublin at minor and U20 level, also plays for UCD, where he is studying economics and finance.
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“It’s great and we’re all very proud of him,” says Paschal.
“I have to be there on Sunday.”
At least they had all day on Friday to make some progress.
Well, they did and they didn’t.
The fire alarm went off in Government buildings on Friday afternoon in the middle of the all-important leaders’ meeting on the budget. The building was evacuated and the entire Taoiseach’s department ended up standing out at the corner on Merrion Square.
There were jokes that the Taoiseach may have been at the deep fat fryer again when he failed to appear at the muster point. Did Micheál leave the chip pan on in his office?
Simon Harris was missing too. Along with Paschal and Jack Chambers.
[ Ministers in fraught negotiations over tightest budget in yearsOpens in new window ]
Maybe somebody spontaneously combusted because the talks become so heated.
Eventually, the shivering Spads and civil servants were relieved to hear that the two party leaders, along with Chambers of Commerce, had decamped to Donohoe’s office to continue their talks.
By close of business on Friday, a number of high-spending departments had yet to seal a deal for next year.
Agriculture wasn’t one of them, although on Wednesday there were a lot of sticking points to iron out. We hear negotiations were tough and tense but, at the tail end of the night, agreement was reached with the team from Public Expenditure and Reform.
The deed was done and it was a final flourish for Brendan Gleeson, secretary general of the Department of Agriculture, who retired on Thursday.
A popular figure, Brendan spent many years working in Ag and although he is a Dub through and through, they never held it against him.
Meanwhile, we wonder if Simon, Paschal and Jack had time to admire the new carpet and freshly painted walls in the recently spruced-up Taoiseach’s office.
Micheál has also taken the opportunity to shuffle a few desks around, installing members of his constituency office staff right up outside the private office while moving some of the private office people down to where the constituency office used to be under the stairs.
With his presidential protege Jim Gavin not exactly shaking up the election campaign, some wags on Merrion Street are wondering if Micheál is positioning his most loyal troops in preparation for a battle.
An ear-bashing over the bike shed
“Boxer” Moran was hopping mad on Tuesday afternoon when Mary Lou McDonald was belting the Taoiseach around the ears with her latest object of outrage.
The Sinn Féin leader was in her element.
“Yes, it’s happening again. It’s bike shed Groundhog Day,” she fulminated during Leaders’ Questions.
“A bike shed scandal mark two is on the cards.”
You wait years and years for a bicycle shelter abomination and then two come along in the space of 12 months.
Micheál Martin didn’t rise to the angry chorus from across the floor, but Kevin “Boxer” Moran, the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW), got very worked up as Mary Lou tore strips off the Government for blowing €100,000 on a new bike shelter for the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street.
“Did you read the e-tender?” he roared. “Read the e-tender!”
Boxer wasn’t in office last year when the scandal of the OPW’s €335,000 bike shed in Leinster House hit the headlines.
But there have been, eh, learnings.
“Since that scenario in Leinster House, we’ve tightened up everything,” he says. “And, in a way, I think it was the best thing to happen in terms of making us realise: ‘Listen, we have to get better value for money here.’ And in fairness to Minister Chambers, my boss, he’s on to us all the time about this. I respect what he says to me and I’m making sure that happens.”
The Sinn Féin leader’s latest bicycle shed broadside hit a nerve.
“I was very annoyed by Mary Lou. Very annoyed. First of all, that shelter is nothing to do with me, it’s the maternity hospital in Dublin that’s doing it. But she is more or less blaming the OPW, saying we haven’t learnt anything. But we’re not building it.”
Boxer says he recently signed off on a €180,000 project which will significantly improve access to Leinster House for people with mobility issues. It included installing a new lift and ramps and building and demolition work.
“The OPW are very quick to give a price, but people also need a breakdown of costs. Then you have TDs like Mary Lou just taking the headline figure and standing up in the Dáil saying you’re wasting money without reading the ins and outs of the tenders. That annoys me because we’re sending out a message that’s wrong.”
Will Pope Leo visit Inishark?
We rang Eamon Ryan on Friday morning.
“I’m in Castel Gandolfo,” sez he, as you do. “Beautiful gardens.”
What was the former minister for the environment doing in the pope’s holiday retreat outside Rome?
Eamon explained he is attending the three-day Raising Hope for Climate Justice conference which was hosted by Pope Leo XIV to mark the 10th anniversary of his predecessor’s Laudato Si’ encyclical, a landmark document devoted entirely to the environment.
“He changed church teaching by recognising that we have to look after nature and each other. The importance of this conference is Pope Leo saying he is going to double down on that mission, which is more important than ever,” says Eamon.
The former Green Party leader is attending in a personal capacity.
Leo addressed delegates on the opening day of the conference when he was joined by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie hailed the American-born pontiff as a (climate) “action hero” and backed the Vatican’s initiative to “terminate” climate change.
When Eamon met Leo there wasn’t time for him to present him with the gift he brought from Ireland – a book called Island Endurance, along with two little pebbles from a recently discovered ancient shrine on the tiny island of Inishark, next to Inishbofin.
In a short handwritten note inside the cover, author Ryan Lash writes of the story of another Leo, “the patron saint of Inishark, a small island off the west coast of Ireland. A thousand years ago, a shrine on this island drew pilgrims who marked their journeys by leaving behind white quartz pebbles in their thousands, polished like pearls by the churn of the tide ... I pray that the world can learn to remember, like these pebbles and pilgrims, the majesty of what we share, a common resonance of being and belonging.”
He hopes the pope will visit Inishark – an invitation shared by Eamon Ryan – to see the places of St Leo and find fellow shepherds there.
Dáil anoraks welcome launch of Nealon’s Guide
Buswells Hotel was packed on Wednesday night for the launch of the latest edition of the Nealon’s Guide to the 34th Dáil and 27th Seanad.
Edited by public affairs consultant and former political journalist Tim Ryan, the guide is the go-to reference work for political anoraks and hacks and an indispensable handbook to each general election.
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy did the honours, delivering an informative speech which was sensibly tailored with an eye to the clock and events across the road in the Dáil, where the weekly voting bloc was due to take place a little later in the evening.
The Nealon’s Guide is named after former RTÉ political broadcaster turned Fine Gael TD and minister of state, the late Ted Nealon, who produced the first one in 1973. Some of the guests at this week’s launch included proud owners of that first edition who like to boast about owning the full set.
[ Latest Nealon’s Guide edition details 34th Dáil and 27th SeanadOpens in new window ]
Ted’s son Fergal, a county councillor, came up from Sligo for the occasion.
The latest edition – which is supported by AIB and produced in association with The Irish Times – includes the top 10 poll-toppers in last year’s election. Fine Gael and Sinn Féin each have three entrants, there are three Independents, with just party leader Micheál Martin the sole standard-bearer for Fianna Fáil.
Donegal’s Pearse Doherty (SF) just edged out Kerry’s Michael Healy-Rae (Ind) for the top spot.
The constituency with the highest turnout was Wicklow and the one with the lowest was Dublin Central.
The father of the Dáil is Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea and the Mother of the Dáil is Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald. This title is conferred on the member with the longest record of unbroken service. Willie has been knocking around the house since 1982, and Mary Lou was first elected in 2011.
Cross-Border kicks
Fine Gael backbencher Frankie Feighan is a busy man these days.
He was just back from attending the British Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool when we met him at the Nealon’s Guide launch.
As a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, he likes to keep abreast of political developments on the other side of the water and, as a political anorak, he enjoys attending party conferences.
“Don’t worry, I pay my own way.”
He’s hoping to go over to the Tory party conference in Manchester on Sunday but a trip North on Friday night to the SDLP conference in Belfast may be thwarted by the weather. Leo Varadkar is scheduled to speak at it.
He put together a five-a-side soccer squad from Leinster House to play in a tournament in Stormont a couple of weeks ago. It was organised by the Northern Assembly’s all-party group on reducing harm related to gambling.
The six travelling TDs were soundly beaten by their Belfast-based counterparts.
Player/manager Frankie and Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Aidan Farrelly (Soc Dems), Joanna Byrne (SF), Darren O’Rourke (SF) and Brian Brennan (FG) were no match for the MLAs including All-Ireland medal winner Justin McNulty (SDLP), Philip McGuigan (SF), Robbie Butler (UUP), and Stephen Dunne (DUP).
Leinster House booking system goes bananas
TDS and Senators are seething over two unidentified parliamentary colleagues who they say upended the booking system for Oireachtas tour groups, leaving them to tell constituents that their planned trips to Leinster House won’t now be happening.
As was reported last week by Cormac McQuinn, authorities had to issue a warning to politicians about block-booking Leinster House tours after one politician’s staff tried to bag 118 slots. We hear that another Oireachtas member, possibly a Senator, may also have tried to corner the market in tours of the building, which are conducted with great aplomb by parliamentary ushers and are in great demand from community groups and schoolchildren.
The booking system sounds a little like the one used by top restaurants, with slots over a specified time period released online on a first come, first served basis.
According to one disgruntled TD, it appears the booking portal opened at midnight on a specified date late last month. “Most people would go online first thing in the morning but somebody must have got wind of the word because they booked up nearly everything in the middle of the night.”
Consternation ensued. The authorities have had to act and, following a meeting of the Oireachtas Commission , an email went out with new instructions for the season.
Each member can book a maximum of three slots, even though some have their names down for a lot more than that. The new TDs and Senators are particularly keen to bring people in.
Members with more than four bookings will have to choose their three preferred options no later than next Friday and the others will be put back into the mix for reallocation.
“It’s causing a lot of hassle and angst,” says our TD. “The worst thing is, you’ve already told these groups that they have a tour. They’ve gotten really popular. Now we have to go and tell them it’s off.
“Whoever is responsible would want to keep their head down and lie low because if we get our hands on them ...”
