Last day out before Second Coming of Enda and Joan

It was a dream location for a meeting but might be the last day out so to speak before Enda and Joan prepare for their Second Coming.

There were all sorts of shenanigans for the Cabinet’s special meeting in Lissadell House, Sligo, yesterday: Byzantine promises for childcare; talk of the happy Fine Gael-Labour marriage continuing and adding the halfpence to the pence amid speculation of a giveaway budget.

But for all the poetic licence borrowed during the speeches, Enda and Joan made great strides to emphasise the glue keeping the two parties together ahead of the election. It’s all about “security and stability” in the economy, both reiterated.

Indeed, nobody was taking any chances around the grounds of Lissadell, particularly gardai overseeing security at the historic house.

Roaming sniffer dogs, a helicopter circling overhead and Garda searches of journalists cars all preceded the giddy arrival of the Cabinet. Smiling ministers stepped down from their special Mercedes bus, as they were met by Lissadell’s owners, Eddie Walsh and his wife Constance Cassidy, as well as by five of the barrister couple’s seven children.

Asked how the preparations had gone for the Cabinet vacance (its one and only away day since the Coalition came to power in 2011), Ms Cassidy quipped: “My only concern was the scones, whether they were raspberry or not.”

Mr Walsh, echoing the Coalition’s last leg before the general election is called, said he had only just cut a portion of the grand lawn in front of the stately pile for a local triathlon that had finished on the grounds of Lissadell last week. In words fitting for the final months of the Fine Gael-Labour alliance Mr Walsh explained:

“They [the triathlon] had to run up the hill, for the last 100 yards...I was polishing what’s left of the grass.”

It was a suitable comparison for what the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition faces as both parties prepare to meet the electorate in the general election, after a serious drubbing in recent polls.

And so both Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tanaiste Joan Burton pulled no punches as they mixed poetic references with politics, surrounded by buckets of history and verse at Lissadell House.

The two party leaders even held their own one-to-one, in what is known as The Boudoir of the grand home.

“The marriage is not on the rocks,” confided Enda to a grinning set of journalists and cameramen, although with an inquiring look up at his taller counterpart.

“We’re still talking,” responded Joan candidly.

Joan also gave much weight to “walking in the footsteps” of Countess Constance Markievicz, who grew up in the estate, was the first Irish female minister and a member of the first Irish government. Is there a Second Coming on the cards, quizzed one journalist referring to WB Yeats’ famous poem, and are they already on an election footing?

Enda admitted there are “always tensions in a house”. But Joan was a lot more magnanimous in her approach to the two parties continuing in Government after the next election.

“There’s a very strong working agreement between the two parties...but they are separate parties,” she contended.

At this stage, most of the Cabinet stood in silence observing the two talking down the clock as the sun attempted to peep out of the clouds over Lissadell.

It was as friendly an event could ever get before the Cabinet and TDs go their own ways for the summer break. Indeed, the next time they meet on September 2, they will surely be on an election footing. There will be promises of beautiful lofty things, of childcare, of tax cuts and all sorts of Byzantine measures. At least Joan and Enda will be able to turn to each other and say “we’ll always have Lissadell”.