Daily Mail (GB): I can forgive Jackie Healy-Rae for being a buffoon but not for holding a gun to Cowen’s head
By PAUL DRURY
IF YOU made him up, you would be accused of racism.That thick-as-
treacle Kerry accent, that big shiny red face, that simian gait, that
greasy coil of hair glued to the scalp with what appears to be
bootpolish, the even greasier green cap that holds the preposterous
edifice so firmly in place, the whole ‘cute Kerry hoor’ effect.
The rock out of which Jackie Healy-Rae is hewn is the foundation stone
on which vindictive Punch cartoonists of the 19th century built their
fortunes - he is, in short, a gross caricature whose stage Irishness
is laid on by the loy-load and who looks as out of place in the Dail
as, for example, Gavin Lambe-Murphy would in Healy- Rae’s own
Kilgarvan pub.
If that were all this buffoon were guilty of, I could forgive him; it
does, after all, appear to play quite well back home in the boondocks
and, when all is said and done, is mildly amusing to the rest of us.
Unfortunately, however, looking like an escapee from a particularly
corny episode of Killinaskully is the least of this 78- year-old
rogue’s sins.
Infinitely more serious than any cultural, sartorial or tonsorial
offence the independent TD for South Kerry may have caused in an
inglorious 12-year career in national politics is the untold damage he
and his like have done to the manner in which democracy is conducted
in this country. Healy-Rae and his fellow independents are the cuckoos
in the Irish political nest.
The vagaries of the proportional representation system, allied in
recent decades to the increased fragmentation of Irish society, have
meant that an overall Dail majority - like a united Ireland, draining
the Shannon or restoring the Irish language - is now and for ever more
destined to be at best the stuff of politicians’ dreams.
Cuckoos
And so - just like Tony Gregory, Mildred Fox, Tom Gildea and Harry
Blaney in the past - Healy-Rae and that equally egregious Fine Gael
renegade, Michael Lowry, along with the Green Party’s six TDs, are all
that stand, a week away from this makeor-break budget, between Fianna
Fail and the general election that would inevitably bring Brian
Cowen’s political career to an abrupt and ignominious end.
As did those other political cuckoos who went before them, they have
snuggled down at the heart of the Government nest, their beaks gaping
ever wider while other, weaker fledglings are ruthlessly cast over the
edge as all the while the hapless hen - for which read Taoiseach -
struggles to satisfy the greedy intruder’s inflated appetite.
We saw it again this week when Brian Cowen - the man, whether we like
it or not, who stands between us and the International Monetary Fund -
was forced to take precious time out not only from planning the most
important Budget in the history of this state but also from crunch
talks to stave off yet another damaging and deeply divisive public
sector strike.
Why? In order to spend 45 minutes closeted with Healy-Rae and his
equally absurd son and heir apparent, Michael. And the agenda:
‘projects for south and south-west Kerry for 2010’. In other words, at
a time when the entire country is in imminent danger of disappearing
down the economic plughole and swingeing cutbacks are being made
everywhere else, the Taoiseach is talking about spending more money in
south Kerry.
Magnanimous to a fault, the Healy-Rae double act (Michael, you see, is
destined conveniently to step into Jackie’s shoes when the old man
retires at the next general election) conceded that they were
‘pragmatic’ in their negotiations this week and had ‘adjusted their
cloth’ in light of the current economic difficulties and the
likelihood that 2010 will be a tough year for all of us. Now, wasn’t
that big of them?
But they are still insisting, it appears, on a new 40-bed hospital in
Kenmare - even though there is no provision for any such hospital in
the Government’s capital programme and even though, much to the fury
of those affected, everywhere else in the country the HSE is busily
closing down small local hospitals just like the one the Healy-Raes
want for their own constituency.
Not that a minor detail like that should cause them too many sleepless
nights down in Kilgarvan. The last time Mr Cowen desperately needed Mr
Healy-Rae Senior’s vote was in May of this year when the public
finances were in an equally parlous condition but when it so happened
that the Taoiseach also had to see off a Fine Gael motion of no
confidence.&E;
And yes, the Independent TD trooped dutifully into the Government
lobby - but only after securing a firm commitment to a [currency]
10million bypass for Castleisland and a letter from Health Minister
Mary Harney, promising him that A services would not be removed from
Kerry General Hospital (this after the HSE spent [currency] 280,000 on
a report recommending, inter alia, just that).
As for Mr Lowry, who also voted for the Government on that occasion,
his hourlong private meeting with Mr Cowen resulted in certain ‘firm’
commitments about the future of Nenagh General Hospital - commitments
that once again ran directly counter to HSE policy elsewhere in the
country. But they kept this moneygrubbing tax evader happy; and that,
it appears, is all that matters.
There is, of course, nothing new in any of this; back in 2007,
immediately after the general election, then taoiseach Bertie Ahern
signed off on personal pacts that secured the support of both Mr
Healy-Rae and Mr Lowry, as well as Dublin independent Finian McGrath
and then independent Beverley Flynn.
Typically, Bertie did so not on official Government notepaper but on
stationery he borrowed from his own constituency office, St Luke’s -
so that pesky journalists could not subsequently use FoI requests to
find out precisely what the price of these votes was. We can, however,
have a good guess, thanks to what we know of previous such deals.
Outrageous
In 1982, Tony Gregory negotiated an Pounds 80million-a-year deal for
Dublin’s inner city with Charlie Haughey. In 1997, Tom Gildea secured
an overhaul of the entire country’s television broadcasting system -
because his Co. Donegal constituents did not want to pay for the
signal that at the time was being ‘bounced’, illegally, into their
homes by so-called deflectors. Mildred Fox got a new secondary school
and a new district veterinary office for Co. Wicklow.
All of which was outrageous enough back then. Whatever about the
Gregory deal, by 1997 there was plenty of money in the country and
there were new schools and dispensaries and even television stations
springing up all over the place. But things are very different today.
Hospitals are being closed, road projects scrapped, budgets slashed,
people put to the pin of their collar - everywhere, that is, except in
Kerry South and Tipperary North.
Because they chose to elect an independent TD, the people of Kerry
South have infinitely more influence on Government policy - and are
now infinitely more likely to have money spent on them - than, for
example, the people of Kildare. Kerry South has a population of fewer
than 70,000 while Kildare, the fastest-growing county in the country,
is home to nearly 200,000.
What is more important in the overall scheme of things - relieving the
sclerotic commuter routes in and out of Dublin from Kildare, or
building a bypass around Castleisland? We all know the answer to that
one; but, sadly, we all also know where, even in the economic
wasteland we now inhabit, the money is more likely to go.
That may be cause for celebration in Kilgarvan. But the deputy for
Kerry South will forgive me if I, for one, am instead left feeling
profoundly depressed. In fact, just about the only thing that would
bring a smile to my face right now would be the sight of Mr Healy-
Rae’s cap being whipped away in a gust of wind and that greasy coil of
hair unravelling endlessly in his shameless wake.
I, however, can merely dream. Mr Healy-Rae, it seems, only has to ask
and he shall receive.
Originally published by PAUL DRURY.