The Fianna Failures Face The Ides Of March

CAESAR: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the Ides of March
CAESAR: What man is that?
BRUTUS: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March. - Out by four days, the Bard predicts the demise of Fianna Fail. Happy days.

By Charley Brady

I don't know. You turn your back on Fianna Fail for a few weeks, thinking that they can't mess themselves and the country up any more than they already have and then they go and prove you spectacularly wrong.

All I wanted was to give my bile duct a rest over the Christmas and New Year, yet here I am again; but with the stupendous way in which the Soldiers of Destiny have imploded this week, how can I not be back dipping my quill into the old pot of vitriol that I always carry around with me?

A more genteel hack would say: "This column has always spoken out about the hypocrisy and incompetence of Fianna Fail"; but I'm not genteel. I've had a deep loathing for them and all that they stand for and have written for years on this same subject. So it's with great glee that I'm watching the bastards go down in flames.

I'm not familiar with the vaunted Corridors of Power that these swine became accustomed to walking because they had a gutless electorate for over a decade that would do nothing to halt their self-aggrandisement. I'm more familiar with the gutter, myself; and thankful for it. You meet a more decent class of person there, on the whole, than you would by rubbing shoulders with these pampered, arrogant, out of control rats.

They didn't need to show their true colours in the way that they did these past days. They were already going to be decimated in the polls. Now most of them have simply guaranteed that their legacy, such as it was, will just be recalled with even more distaste and contempt than was going to happen anyway.

Talking of showing the true colours, what about Brian Lenihan? Boy, they're not even TRYING to stop their masks from slipping these days. He's one guy who has gotten an easy ride this past year, being seen by most of the public as fundamentally decent; and of course nobody liked the way in which his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer was outed on a Christmas Eve. Nice, that, I don't think. Yet here he goes and shows himself up this week as a back- stabbing and manipulative cut-price Machiavellian who wasn't even very competent at betrayal.

Now that his role in the half- assed failure of a coup against Brian Cowen is out in the open we know that he's been whispering discontent into the plug holes of any who would listen for months now. Then when a few of them get together and have a go at ousting Caesar he turns on them too by loudly and ostentatiously backing Cowen. I don't think he'll be forgiven for that.

For me, though, the big thing (no pun intended) was Mary Harney, the joke of a woman who was Minister for Health. Well, let's be honest, the joke was always really on us. She just took advantage of the fact that all we ever do here is complaining in the pub. That's as far as it ever bloody goes.

We sought her here, we sought her there, we sought that Death's Head everywhere. After all, cases of swine flu were going through the roof, as were the prices that the already stretched people were being told they had to pay for their healthcare premiums; so a normal country would expect the woman in charge of things to - well, be here. Nobody would say where the hell she was though. After all, you don't expect politicians to be answerable to the people that they in laughable theory work for, do you? It was as if it was some sort of state secret.

To nobody's particular surprise she turned out to be on one of her endless holidays, this time in Thailand for three weeks. Of course it was five star hotels and lavish resteraunts all the way. We were reminded of the fun time she had at our expense the previous year, when she refused to return from her St. Patrick's day jaunt to New Zealand in order to deal with yet another crisis in "Health". That one cost us - US €34,000 with a staggering €2,390 of that going on car hire alone.

Florida, South Africa, Arizona (to see the Superbowl, and if you're puzzled as to why she needed the government jet for that and what it had to do with her job, then join the queue) and Tallinn. Ah, yes, Tallinn.

Now Tallinn, I must confess, I had to look up. I'm reasonably well travelled but nowhere in Mary's league. Who is? It's the capital of Estonia so don't ever say that this column isn't educational.

She played a particular blinder in 2008 when she hit the States (lucky you) before the Tallinn trip and then back across the waves AGAIN, this time to torment the Chicagoans. All in all, we've shelled out €100,000 for her to see the world. Yet under her the country supposedly couldn't afford to pay for the cervical cancer treatments for 4,000 women. She's not just a disgrace; she is a callous, selfish and uncaring woman.

Well, at the very worst time for the country that she could have picked she arrived back and handed in her resignation on Wednesday evening; but when did caring for their country ever belong in the same sentence as the creatures that form our government?

That whirring sound that you can hear is true patriots revolving in their graves.

Those who died in hospital due to neglect under her watch were of course unable to cheer at the news; but the cheers of those who simply suffered because of her found their delight subdued by the terms of her kiss-off, whereby she will receive €353,557 in the first two years. After that she'll have to scrape by on a paltry €140,371. Nice work if you can get it. I'll be curious to see if she takes as many trips when it's not us that's coughing up the blood for them, even though at those figures she can damned well afford to.

(Just as an aside, why the hell is it that politicians don't have to work their notice like the rest of we peasants? Just a thought.)

Tributes were kind of short on the ground to tell us of her sterling work over the past years, although there was a predictably good one from Brian Clown. Still, not to worry. The lady herself was more than willing provide one: "I wish to announce that I will not be contesting the forthcoming General Election. I have reached my decision having taken into account the advice and consistent support offered over many years of my family, friends and colleagues...

"I have been deeply honoured to serve as a public representative in our Oireachtas since 1977. It was a great privilege to be appointed by the former Taoiseach Jack Lynch to the Seanad."

On and on she went but since I have a bit of a dodgy stomach as it is this afternoon I'm going to cut the more sickening parts out.

"The forthcoming election is and must be about the future of the country [talk about stating the feckin' obvious!]; a future for Ireland that can be, and I am convinced will be, renewed, reformed and successful. I urge people, particularly younger people, to participate in the process with energy and commitment and to reject personal rancour and cynicism in political life. Be ambitious for the country you want to create."

Bloody hell! I almost passed away peacefully when she came out with that load of twaddle! No one has done more to foment cynicism in young people than this bunch of gougers and chancers. Anyway, there are literally hundreds of those same young people emigrating EVERY WEEK because there is nothing left here for them. The sheer unadulterated bloody cheek of this awful person.

Well, she's gone now and I hope to whatever warped gods there are that she doesn't enjoy a cent of her ill-gotten loot; and that the door doesn't bang her ass too gently on the way out either.

Typhoid Mary wasn't the first to throw in the towel but following her in quick succession came Justice Minister Dermot Ahern; Defence Minister Tony Killeen; Transport Minister Noel Dempsey and by Thursday the rumours were flying that Public Representative Minister Batt O'Keefe had joined the Cash Cow Brigade.

There they were, all lined up behind Harney as they queued outside the Department of Fianna Fail Entitlements. They were like a line of little Duracell bunny rabbits with their greedy little paws out as they repeated mechanically: "What's in it for me? What's in it for me?", over and over.

Well, it wasn't too bad as it happens. Initially O'Keeffe and Killeen are working out at a tasty €272,000 and €277,000 respectively; while Ahern and Dempsey are probably feeling pretty happy out with their €312,000 each.

Tell you what, since I watched my own pension fund being wiped out a couple of years back I'll offer to trade places with them.

It's impossible of course to predict when Cowen's current travails began but it's probably fair to say that the present ones began with a sociable round of golf back in 2008 which involved Cowen and disgraced banker Seanie FitzPatrick hanging out together on the course before having a slap up meal. The hitherto unknown details came as a bit of a shock to... well, no one really. Now, I say sociable because according to Cowen they talked of nothing relating to financial matters WHATSOEVER.

Well, that's a bit like Bertie telling us about all that loot he won on a horse whose name he can't remember. Jeez, if I had won the amount of money Bertie had I'd have that nags name tattooed across my ass.

I mean, Seanie was a banker and Cowen was a Minister for Finance and they DIDN'T DISCUSS FILTHY LUCRE? Pull the other one; it's got bells on it.

Yet when it came to questions in the Dail he damned near got off lightly. Enda Kenny of Fianna Gael and Eamon Gilmore of Labour proved themselves astonishingly inept and it was left to Sinn Fein's Caomhghin O'Caolain to ask the obvious but explosive question - who else was at this Gathering of Greats?

Backed into a corner, Cowen was forced to give a pretty interesting answer. Two others that were there were Smurfit Executive and Anglo Irish Bank Director Gary McGann; and "economic consultant" (slippery, that one) Alan Gray.

Yet they didn't talk about money matters, none of them. Not even at the nineteenth hole. Well, I don't know about you but if Cowen says that then I believe him. Who wouldn't?

Anyway, he survived the attack against him by Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin this week and seemed to be back in fighting form until TDs started getting ratty about his plan to reassign ministerial properties to whatever FF ministers were left. Boy, did that upset the graspers. The Greens weighed in and blocked this and suddenly there he was, large as life and twice as ugly, having to announce an election for March 11. How perfect it would have been for my love of Shakespeare and the play "Julius Caesar" if he had just made it the 15th of March instead. What a spoilsport.

That's it reduced to basics.

...And how perfect that just as I was writing the above on a Saturday afternoon, thinking that I might as well get this off because nothing will probably happen until Monday what do I get but a text to say that Cowen has just resigned, having called a press conference in Dublin just an hour previously. A week is long time in politics? A WEEK?

So now we have a man who has been deemed unfit to lead his party but will still be leading the country until March 11? Honestly, in the name of all that's sane, what do people from outside think when they look at this open air mental hospital of a country? Would YOU invest a few bob in it?

By the time you read this on Tuesday I wonder how out of date this piece will look.

They're already out canvassing. Please, if there really is a God then let them knock on this door, any of them. Trust me, they won't know what hit them. If I lived in a castle like some of them do it would be hot boiling oil down on the lot of them.

With all of this happening, it looks as if I'll forget about a few weeks off and hope to see you again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net