Farewell to Gent Tony

LEINSTER House said goodbye last week to one of the great gentlemen of Irish politics.

No, he isn’t a politician but with the wealth of experience that Labour’s Tony Heffernan has (pictured far right at his final Political Correspondents' press briefing) maybe he should have been.

Tony retired from the Labour Party’s press office last week after a long career. Among those to wish him well in his retirement included Labour stalwarts Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte.

But just because he is gone does not mean that he will be forgotten. A gent like Tony simply can’t fade off into retirement.

Methinks he will remain a powerhouse of wisdom in the Labour Party ranks for a long time to come yet.

Twisted Zeppelin!!

WHEN Led Zeppelin met Twisted Sister, a beautiful relationship was created.

And it seems that the offspring of that great match is infiltrating Irish political life as we speak.

Just look at Independent TD Mick Wallace – he is surely the secret son/brother or twin of Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider.

Either that or Wallace is planning his own Leinster House hard-rock tribute band!

FF Front Bench Mans Up

FIANNA Fail unveiled its new front bench this week – and to be honest, it was a bit of a damp squib!!

Talk about jobs for the boys!! (Fianna Fail has no female TDs)

Quite literally EVERY member of the party got a new gig (the party is now just down to 20!)

It has nearly come to the stage where the party’s backroom team is nearly bigger than the party itself.

What next? The annual think-in in the coffee shop up the street?

What did they do to deserve Bertie?

BERTIE Ahern hasn’t gone away, you know!

He was last spotted giving advice to the Nigerian Government on the need to ensure consistent and transparent policies if their economy is to attract much needed foreign investment an economic development.

Nigeria, consistent and transparent in one sentence? He must have moved back to Planet Bertie!

Political Allsorts!

Staff working around Leinster House now know exactly how a teacher feels on the first day back at school with a new class, desperately trying to figure out who all the new faces are.

A handy photo guide to the new TDs, issued by the Houses of the Oireachtas, is a must-have accessory in Leinster House at the moment if you are to distinguish between students and some of the younger TDs.

Following the massive blood-letting in the election, the new administration is only a few weeks old and it seems even some of the TDs are still getting to grips with their new digs.

Common sights around the House are lost TDs trying to figure out where the Bills Office is or the Debates Office (they figured out where the bar and the restaurant were on day one!)

But it seems it will take them a bit of time to get used to the rules and traditions of the great house.

Young TDs can be seen blatantly chewing gum in the Dail chamber (a big no no) while over on ‘Independent Avenue’, the dress code is causing some raised eyebrows among many.

Wexford Independent Mick Wallace never fails to disappoint. We have seen every colour of the rainbow on him since he first took his seat.

In some quarters, they are even taking bets as to when he will wear a football shirt into the hallowed chamber!

Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan - while being as neat as he can possibly be with a head of long hair and a glorious goatee - also looks a bit out of place surrounded by the suits and ties.

South Kerry’s Michael Healy-Rae is almost unidentifiable without his trademark hat and as for People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd-Barrett,he has turned up almost every day wearing black jeans.

Even Socialist TD Joe Higgins raised a few eyebrows on Tuesday. The normally dapper politician turned up in the Dail chamber wearing a casual beige jacket as opposed to the normal sports jacket that he normally wears.

As one stalwart of Leinster House told this column, ‘you’d think that they would at least dress up, this is the national parliament after all. But then again, aren’t they rebels who think they have a cause?”!

Leo scops the press!

Start as you mean to go on - that is the mantra of new Transport Minister Leo Varadkar who scooped every news organisation by being the first to reveal the cost of his St Patrick’s Day junket to India.

Every year, newspapers scramble to get the cost of the different Ministerial junkets but this year, young Leo decided to save us all the hassle and published the exact costs on his website - within days of returning.

Leo has never been backward in coming forward about how he spends his money - he was one of the first TDs to itemise his expenditure on his website.

And it seems he is carrying that practice on into Ministerial life.

For the record, the cost of his six day trip to India (accompanied by his private secretary as is normal practice) came in at just over €9,000.

This included flights to India, internal flights, overnight accommodation and gifts for dignitaries.

During the course of the trip, the Minister said he met over 100 people and addressed over 1,000 people at evening evening events in New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Smokers' cause won't catch light

Micheal Martin - turn away now. Do not read another line!

A new campaign has been started to convince the new Government to tweak the non-smoking laws in Ireland to give pubs a bit of, erm, breathing space!

Seven years after the smoking ban came into effect in all Irish workplaces, a smokers’ group has called for the legislation to be amended to bring Ireland into line with most European countries and ‘help save the Irish pub’.

The group is called Forest Eireann and its spokesman John Mallon said since the ban was introduced, more than 1,000 pubs have gone bust with more closures on the way.

“A sensible compromise has been found in countries such as Holland where small, owner-managed pubs can choose to be smoking or non-smoking, and larger premises are given the option of having separate, well-ventilated smoking rooms,” he said.

“With a change of government, let’s have a change of heart on the smoking ban and help save the Irish pub.”

Considering that the new administration is healthier than the last (Enda Kenny is a cyclist and a mountain climber), I’d say Forest Eireann’s call will disappear in a puff of smoke!

Political Twitterings

THE UK’S MPs have been given the all-clear to use Twitter while on the floor of the House of Commons.

The new rules, devised by the Commons’ Procedure Committee, has given permission to the UK’s 650 members of parliament to use the microblogging site while in the Commons chamber.

It’s also approved the usage of iPads, laptop computers and smartphones – with the committee agreeing that with “those who argue that [using Twitter] brings Parliament to a whole new audience.”

On the topic of tablet computers like iPads, the committee found that using electronic notes as a memory aid should be no different to the old-fashioned paper notes.

Nice to see the UK following Ireland's 'unofficial' lead.

While there are no set rules on the use of Tweeting from the Dail chamber, the fact is that many do.

And as for using an iPad in the chamber? That is so last year for the
Irish lads and lassies!

A bit of political Four Play

A four-way debate - that is the only fair way that RTE can accommodate all the political parties in the run-up to the general election.

In the past, it was simply a two-way debate between what were the two biggest parties - Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Last year, Labour - quite rightly - was putting RTE under pressure to ensure that the leaders’ debate before the election would be a three-way one including themselves.

Judging by the opinion polls of the past 12 months, Labour can no longer be regarded as a small party, sidelined to a minor debate.

But now a new power has emerged - Sinn Fein. And with the last opinion poll showing that they had as much support as Fianna Fail, surely there is a valid argument to include them in such a debate?

To keep them out based just on the number of TDs the party has at the moment would be a gross insult to the people, many who, for the first time, are preparing to give the party a vote.

And it is the same for the Labour supporters. Labour will be a significant power in the next Government and Eamon Gilmore deserves a podium at the leaders’ debate.

Look at the leaders’ debates across in the UK in the run-up to the elections there last year. They were three-way debates and it wasn’t any huge problem. In fact, they were informative and entertaining.

The Greens will, no doubt, want a place in a leaders’ debate if it is a free for all. But a line has to be drawn and with little more than 3% support, it is hard to argue that they should be there.

A four-way debate is the fairest way that RTE can deal with this.

But then again, it may not be RTE who does it at the end of the day. TV3 will, no doubt, be keen to pitch for their slice of the action.

To be fair to TV3, they are taking the bull by the horns in overhauling TV coverage of elections.

They want an end to the archaic broadcasting moratorium in advance of polling day.

Current guidelines drawn up by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland force TV and radio stations to stop virtually all political coverage in a 48 hour period, which includes the day before polling day and the
day of the poll itself.

However this does not apply to print media, online media or to foreign media which are available in Ireland.

TV3 believes this moratorium has no basis in law, is non-existent in other countries, is ineffective and is archaic.

Final round for Cowen

And so reads the Gospel according to Seanie FitzPatrick:

“For information (on the economy), one of the best sources is FT.com. For analysis, read the Economist. But for the real McCoy, you can’t beat the nineteenth hole on the golf course.”

Forget about the economy, forget about the state of the banks, forget about the politicians who are about as popular as nasty veruccas - it seems that a simple round of golf may have put the final nail in Brian Cowen’s political coffin.

While this column is a true believer that golf is a good walk spoiled, it may now be a case of golf being a good career spoiled!

Blame Game for Brain Drain

RTE screened a remarkable and moving documentary on Monday night entitled Departure Day, in which it chronicled the plight of our young (and old) being forced to emigrate to find work.

To Canada and Australia and other corners of the globe they went in search of a brighter future for themselves and their families.

However, it was interesting to see how people tried to put their own political spin on the heartbreaking - and avoidable - subject of emigration.

Most, naturally enough, blamed the Government for the mess, saying that they had done absolutely nothing to stop the brain drain from the country.

Many of those critics were from the ranks of Fine Gael and Labour.

However, the last big emigration wave that Ireland witnessed was back in the 80s when, guess who, was in power? Fine Gael and Labour.

When challenged on this, their response was that they inherited the mess.

Well, they are about to inherit another mess now - are they up to the challenge of solving it? Time will tell.

Dan leads the race to be Top Twit

While we don’t want to start the New Year off by offending someone, I’m sure Dan Boyle won’t mind that he is being tipped to be the biggest political twit of 2011!

Bookies Paddy Power have installed the Cork Senator as their favourite to send the most tweets between now and the forthcoming general election.

Dan is a well-known social media enthusiast with over 8,900 followers on Twitter and has tweeted a thumb-numbing 3,120 times.

Others in the running for the title include Fine Gael Senator Paschal Donohue, Green TDs Paul Gogarty and Ciaran Cuffe and Fianna Fail’s Chris Andrews.

Fine Gael spokesperson for Transport and the Marine, Simon Coveney, who gave Taoiseach Brian Cowen a morning to remember last September is available to back at 25/1.

Ken Robertson from Paddy Power said when it comes to Twitter ‘Dan Boyle, with almost 10,000 followers, is the man with everyone in his rear view mirror’.