Why Ivor the Survivor became Ivor the Diver
Once the news broke yesterday that a major Dublin construction company, John Paul, arranged for Callely’s Landsdale House in Clontarf to be painted for free in the early 1990s, you knew that before the day was gone, he would be walking the plank. And what kind of plunge was Ivor the Diver taking? The inglorious one into the backwaters of the Government back benches.
The more you find out about Callely’s “form” since he became a junior minister in 2002, the more you conclude he was lucky to have lasted so long.
Last Friday night at the Fianna Fáil presidential dinner, Callely put his side of the story across. His argument was that there was a whispering campaign to get him out.
The problem with the Ivor the Victim theory he pushed is that all of his recent controversies reflected very badly on him. If misfortune had fallen on him, there was nobody to blame, ultimately, but himself.
Sure, his appetite for work was legendary. But from the start his priorities was skewed. Those who dealt with him expressed doubt about his grasp of the issues. His political project was himself. There was the craven need for publicity, as shown by the photography bill he ran up for self-promotional pictures when junior minister.
And then there was the question of what Bertie Ahern described as his “attitude” and “behaviour” as minister. In one of his most wounding comments yesterday, the Taoiseach referred to “carpets” and “photo”, a snipe at Callely’s self-absorbtion and self-aggrandisement.
The behaviour extended to his dealings with staff. He has gone through five private secretaries since 2002. The two high-profile departures in recent weeks betray a pattern where he made inappropriate and unacceptable demands on civil servants. In his last few months in Health, according to reliable sources, there was an uncomfortably large number of civil servants no longer on speaking terms with him.
Callely has spoken of himself as driven and ambitious. But towards what? He said on a radio show about a month ago he wanted to be Taoiseach one day. All very well, but what qualities could he bring besides self-promotion?
Those who have worked closely with him (and these are on the political side, not the civil service side) have described him as being not a team player. In the autumn, Callely took it upon himself to make pronouncements on transport policy without clearing it with senior minister, Martin Cullen. Cullen later said that Callely was working on “guesswork”.
For all the profile stuff, his record as a minister was poor. He was charged with the “elderly” brief in Health. He was at least as culpable as his senior minister Micheál Martin for the failures over nursing home charges and for the standards in some nursing homes. He took little of the flak for that. He attended that crucial meeting when the possible illegality of charges was brought up. But despite it being his area, he did little about it.
Paul Murray of Age Action Ireland, in a damning assessment said: “We never found him to be totally engaged or to fully understand the issues. He was difficult to deal with. Overall his performance was disappointing.”
Back in 1997, he made controversial statements about asylum seekers that should have placed doubts on his ministerial pedigree.
He claimed they were “carrying on in a culture that is not akin to Irish culture.” When asked to elaborate, he said they were involved in the “bleeding of lambs in the back garden”.
His career unravelled in days. The Taoiseach called him into his office on Monday and gave him a serious dressing down. It was the last chance saloon.
Final orders were called within 48 hours. The Taoiseach, grim-faced, told the Dáil of how he tried to contact him the night before and yesterday but to no avail. He gave the strong impression that Callely was still a minister because he was incommunicado. For such a publicity fiend, there was irony in that.
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