The LucEnda Show puts intrusive surveillance in shade

Intrusive surveillance dominated the EU summit, but Enda Kenny had far bigger things to worry about than the phone tapping fury erupting between the US and Germany — he had Lucinda Creighton on his case.

Despite sacking her as Europe minister, throwing her out of the parliamentary party, and trying to get her local branch to expel her after a show trial, there she was, right behind him at the meeting of Europe’s right wing leaders — just like old times.

As vice-president of the European People’s Party (EPP) grouping of the austerity political fan club, Ms Creighton insisted she had every reason to be there and Enda could not argue with the fact that she was a VP — though in his understanding of the term it probably stands for Veritable Pain.

Ironically, the pair could not have chosen a more romantic setting for their Fatal Attraction-esque reunion than Bouchout Castle set in a beautiful forest on the outskirts of Brussels.

It was an unusually sumptuous venue for the meeting, but perhaps a clue was in the name of the nearby village, Meise, which is pronounced “Mice”, because it seemed all present were mere political mice in the presence of German chancellor Angela Merkel, who dominates the right-wing austerity fanatics to an even greater degree than she does the wider EU after her triumph at the polls last month.

Despite all Enda’s tough talk back home about how he was going to land the multibillion-euro bank debt payback and get super-sweet terms for Ireland’s exit from the bailout, when asked if he raised these issues with Ms Merkel face-to-face at the EPP gathering, the Taoiseach said: “No. I congratulated her on her magnificent achievement in the elections, I didn’t get a chance to go beyond that.”

So, to translate: Ms Merkel allowed him to suck up to her and tell her how wonderful she is, but then shut him down and moved on before anything of importance could be brought up by Mr Kenny.

And this brush-off despite the Taoiseach writing to all his fellow leaders urging them to give Ireland back the tens of billions of euro its politicians poured down the Anglo toilet — even though the German government already flushed this idea in the same direction as the bank bailout loot.

While it is nice Enda has pen pals across Europe to exchange news and gossip with, it is hardly much progress on what the Coalition branded, in a moment of smugtastic self-congratulation, the “game-changing” and “seismic” bank legacy debt deal at the EU summit of 16 months ago.

By the time Mr Kenny made it to the latest government summit at the European Commission buildings he had managed to shake off Lucinda, but saw a rapid crash back to Earth when he was greeted on the edge of the throng rather than the centre he enjoyed during Ireland’s six-month presidency of the outfit earlier this year.

After escaping the clutches of Ms Creighton, the Taoiseach said he was grappling with something round and dangerous — a “vicious circle” to be precise. This, he explained, was the link he had to smash between bank debt and the Irish taxpayer — which is going to be some achievement if he cannot even manage to get Ms Creighton to stay at home. Lucinda has followed him to the forests of Europe, and he knows she will be waiting for him in the long grass at home.

The LucEnda Show is the Breaking Bad of Irish politics — but it is still to reach its explosive finale.