Despite what some Dáil deputies say, it’s important to dress to impress

By Matt Cooper

Friday, July 15, 2011

IF I run into Roscommon TD Luke "Ming" Flanagan in Roscommon next Sunday at the Connacht Senior Football Final he’ll find that I’ll be dressed in a suit, what might be called a "business suit".

Strange attire for going to a football match on a Sunday, I’m sure he and you might think and not what I’d don, all other things being equal. But I have to wear it, even if I’d prefer to be in a shirt and a pair of jeans. I’m working on Sunday at the match and TV3 requires me to dress in a suit (although I’m not required to wear a tie) for appearing as presenter of the television production. That’s the dress code that’s demanded of me by my job and I’m more than happy to oblige.

Already I imagine there are some readers thinking that they don’t like me doing the GAA on TV3 no matter what I wear; that comes with the territory and I’ll say it as quickly as they think it. And there are others who will think that it should be important how I look; it’s how I ask the questions of the panellists, hand over to the commentator on time and call the score correctly that matters. But it’s not radio — where some days I wear a suit on air, and other days jeans and a hoodie, depending on my morning mood, or who I’m likely to be interviewing that day — but television, so it is important that I look neat and tidy, at the very least.

It also means that on TV I’ll wear as much make-up as Bertie Ahern did as he performed his daily duties as Taoiseach, at a cost to the taxpayer estimated at €30,000 per year. Ahern used to get some stick about that. My problem with it was not that he did it — his trouble with five o’clock shadow and the red blotches on his face that many men develop as they age made it understandable that he chose to wear make-up so as to look as if he was up to the job — but that we paid for it.

One row that dominated over the last week — as our economy faces, again, into the abyss — was about the "appropriate" attire for TDs, particularly male ones, in the Dáil. Some of the new TDs, particularly the independents, are what might be deemed as colourful and individual dressers. For example, Mick Wallace, the independent TD for Wexford, likes shocking pink shirts and T-shirts and, no matter what the weather, seems determined never to even wear a jacket. He also likes big earrings.

Richard Boyd Barrett would never wear a suit, seemingly as some sort of class conscious statement, and likes to wear his shirt without tucking it into his trousers. Some of the fussier TDs now want the lads to dress more conventionally for meetings in the Dáil. The pressure will be on them more now after microphones on Tuesday caught Mick Wallace, in conversation with Flanagan and the suited Shane Ross, refer to Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor as "Miss Piggy", the well-heeled muppet who used her handbag like a weapon during episodes of the hit television show. Stung apparently by criticism of their dress sense, Wallace and the others disdained her use of pink and other colours. As well as being rude, it seemed petty. The apologies came fast but the damage was done — and sympathy for the lads when they argue in future that they don’t want to be told what to wear is likely to be slow coming.

As it happens I have some sympathy for them over the dress code issue. Insisting on the wearing of a suit is not always wise. A cheap suit does not always look well, especially a dirty one.

I like what might be called loud shirts, including pink, that I’d wear with or without a suit. On occasions after leaving college I used to have my hair even longer than Mick Wallace’s (if not as blond and curly). I used to get dog’s abuse for it. Apparently it wasn’t appropriate for the editor of a national newspaper to have hair that length. It somehow made me a less serious person apparently and others, especially people I hardly knew, were rarely slow to make comment to my face as to when would I get it cut. I became stubborn about it and wouldn’t give people the satisfaction of forcing me to get it cut. Eventually I did, at the age of 34, mainly because I tired of my eldest infant daughter pulling at it as I carried her over my shoulder.

But another reason was that, sadly, it was easier to get taken seriously with shorter hair. People seem hard-wired into treating you differently if you don’t conform to convention as to how you should look. What you say or do doesn’t get as much attention as how you look. How you look can become a distraction from what can be more important.

What, for example, was the point of me going on television to discuss something if some viewers, instead of listening to me, became more exercised by the cut of my hair and clothes?

Some friends accused me of selling out to convention, of allowing myself to be consumed by the norm. But by the same token, stubbornly holding onto a supposedly unconventional look, to gain attention for that look, or to make some sort of statement of independence, would be have been vanity in itself.

Some independent TDs might want to ask themselves just what sort of statement they want their appearance to make, beyond what seems obvious to them.

Appearance can be important as to how somebody presents themselves in their work — and as to how seriously they are taken by others.

Labour’s presidential candidate Michael D Higgins recently boasted to me on radio of a recently published Hot Press photo of him from a Slane concert in the early 1980s, when he wore a silk shirt open to the navel. He won’t be wearing that as he canvasses. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary goes (almost) everywhere in jeans and a shirt without a tie. The irony is that what appeared to be maverick at first has now become his trademark and uniform.

I can understand how some of the independents believe that it was men in suits who wrecked the country (although it was some in jeans and hardhats who contributed significantly too). Others might ask who of Garrett FitzGerald or Charles Haughey is remembered more fondly as Taoiseach? FitzGerald with his penchant for wearing odd socks, as if clothes didn’t matter to him, or the vain Charlie Haughey who used State money and gifts from donors to finance the purchase of expensive handmade and fitted Charvet shirts from Paris? Wallace has pointed out that his long-hair and pink shirts didn’t stop the people of Wexford from electing him. It was what he had done for the local community and what he said he would do that clinched his election. If somebody doesn’t look after their appearance it is possible that they don’t take sufficient care in other issues either.

Wallace should remember that when his beloved Wexford Youths soccer teams run onto the pitch each week the players have no option but to wear the (pink) jerseys and with numbers on the back to identity them. To take part they have to conform to certain rules and norms or else they won’t be able to play. Wallace would probably say that a player who doesn’t have clean gear or his boots polished is unlikely to be the type who contributes properly on the pitch. Conforming to expectations and the requirements of others is sometimes what being a team player is about.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, July 15, 2011