Politicians just don’t get how normal people live

IT was almost easy to feel sorry for him. When one sharp stab drew the blood from his thick neck and the Bull finally fell, the excruciating pain could be felt through the circle of seats around the Dáil fighting ring.

Even the greatest aficionados of the blood sport that is politics sunk into their chairs, covered their faces and watched through their fingers.

The heroic Eamon Gilmore, who displayed all the style, bravery and skill of a matador was slightly apologetic and uncomfortable with his victorious sacrifice of the sacred bull.

It took just a moment to show the true cruelty of the game they play. The once mighty John O’Donoghue sat alone – forlorn, fallen and without a friend to his rescue – it was a pitiful sight.

As he draws his last gasp before his resignation speech on Tuesday, the outgoing Ceann Comhairle is said to feel “aggrieved” – still insisting he has “done no wrong” – and is calling on the people of his Kerry South constituency to come to his support as he falls victim of a media and opportunistic opposition out to get him.

But could any normal person have sympathy for a man who used the tax of his hard working country men to fund a lifestyle that most people would hardly dare dream of?

Or feel a tinge of sadness for a person who got a limousine ride to watch Italy beat France in a penalty shoot out in the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin – slapping the taxpayer with the €2,400 tab? Or fly by government jet to see Munster’s historic victory in the Heineken Cup rugby final in Cardiff, before using the same jet, in the same week, at a cost of €32,450 to take in a Ryder Cup event in London and the world’s most glamorous film festival in Cannes?

And could any politician really claim to have empathy with a man who flew from Dublin to his constituency in Kerry at weekends, while his state car made the same trip by road so the Garda driver could pick him up at the airport when he landed

Was it possible to feel sorry for Mr O’Donoghue over his forced resignation on Tuesday which left him with a €112,000 golden handshake and a €65,000 a year pension to ease the pain?

The answer is “no” for many Irish people worried about their jobs and mortgages who are stunned and utterly unsympathetic at the claims which amounted to €550,000 during Mr O’Donoghue’s time as Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism and €230,000 in his first two years as Ceann Comhairle.

But for many Fianna Fáil politicians the answer is “Yes”. Not only do they feel “very, very, very, very sorry for him” as one backbencher stressed, some are speaking of Mr O’Donoghue as though he is a great victim, a martyr who has taken the hit for the rest of his colleagues.

Even those on the opposition benches expressed sympathy for him “on a human level” as though theirs is an entirely different species.

Their sympathy for the outgoing Ceann Comhairle, shows how politicians just don’t get how normal people live and how their arrogant sense of self-entitlement still persists.

Up until last weekend, the opposition remained strangely quiet on the expenses controversy with no one willing to criticise Mr O’Donoghue when details emerged of him spending sums of up to €900 a night in some of the world’s top hotels, at the expense of the taxpayer.

When Mr Gilmore eventually stepped up to demand accountability on behalf of taxpayers, his intervention in the Dáil was described as “really shitty” by one Fianna Fáil TD and “lousy” by another.

In his demand for Mr O’Donoghue’s head, Mr Gilmore broke the Leinster House gentleman’s agreement that “we are all in this expenses lark together and if one of us lifts the lid we are screwed”.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said it was “a sad day for Irish politics” while Defence Minister Willie O’Dea compared it to a Stalinist show trial “sentence first, trial afterwards”.

Even Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar defended politicians’ remunerations in a sort of paraphrase of Eamon Dunphy’s famous slogan: “It’s a good salary, but it’s not what people think it is,” he told Prime Time.

On the same programme, Fianna Fáil’s Noel O’Flynn said some of the expenses are justified: “Everyone has a family to keep, everyone is entitled to a salary. You have to drive to Dublin, you have to feed and grub yourself, that is an expense,” he said.

Fianna Fáil Senator Ned O’Sullivan jumped to the defence of his fellow Kerryman who he said was “extremely unfairly treated by the media in recent weeks”.

In a speech in the Seanad he appeared to be outraged with the fact that the public should be allowed to know about politician’s expenses, saying: “Staff in Leinster House have more to do than answer journalists who, on a lazy day with nothing better to do, delve into the individual or collective expenses of members.”

He accused the media of “creating a distrust in politics” as though politicians had nothing to do with it.

ALTHOUGH Mr O’Donoghue has been in hiding since his resignation on Tuesday, he is understood to be feeling hard done by and “very aggrieved”, according to former Fianna Fáil TD for Kerry South, John O’Leary.

Despite everything that has happened, Mr O’Leary insisted yesterday that the expense claims were “the normal thing enough for a man in his position, representing his country”.

Not only has Mr O’Donoghue said privately he has “done no wrong” according to his cousin, Fianna Fáil Kerry county councillor Michael O’Shea, but he intends to run for election again and “expects” voters to support him.

Mr O’Leary said Mr O’Donoghue “will go to the communities and the people he has helped over the years and he expects them to support him”.

And he believes he will be elected “if the people whom he supported and helped back him,” said Mr O’Leary “I see no reason why he would not.”

Mr O’Shea said: “He has done no wrong. I was speaking to him last Saturday and he assured me he had done no wrong.”

Within minutes of taking the chair in June 2007, Mr O’Donoghue was taunted by his old constituency rival Jackie Healy Rea, who promised he would look after the constituents in his absence.

“If there is a bad pothole around Waterville, on Dursey Island in west Co Cork or anywhere in Cahirciveen, I will do my very best, I will do my best to sort them out and I will keep him well informed all the time.”

Mr O’Donoghue replied: “I can assure the deputy, I will never be too far away.”

But it’s now clear that he travelled first-class not only to Paris and Prague but to a different planet – light years away from those people of Kerry whose support over the years allowed him the success that he ultimately exploited.