Politicians never get so angry about issues that matter to the rest of us

THE ranks of Fianna Fáil are upset, apparently because Taoiseach Bertie Ahern favoured Mary Wallace over Seán Haughey in the little reshuffle that caused a lot of feathers to be ruffled this week.

So ruffled, in fact, that one could almost imagine a run on the euro would follow, or interest rates would go through the roof.

Nothing of the sort happened.

What happened was that a few political egos were severely dented - and one in particular. The rest of the country was mostly indifferent, apart from a passing interest as to which highly-paid TD was promoted over another highly-paid TD.

The reaction among the Cabinet and FF backbenchers is symptomatic of what they consider to be a priority, and while they expressed their opinions privately, none of them so far has had the gumption to say it to Bertie.

Because Seán Haughey was passed over, he is now considering his options, and he may even quit. He, more than most, should remember that his daddy, the infamous Charles J, once described Bertie Ahern as the most cunning and devious of them all.

And let’s face it, when it comes to being devious there’s nobody as well placed as the bould Charlie to pronounce on it.

It seems Bertie Ahern, with an eye to the general election, perceived a possible problem in Meath East where Mary Wallace is expected to face a very strong challenge from Labour.

But the reaction was a very interesting insight into what makes a Fianna Fáil minister or backbencher come alive, and it certainly isn’t anything that would improve the lot of the ordinary person on the street.

Political scandals, such as the appalling waste of hundreds of millions of public money on the likes of the aborted electronic voting system or PPARs, or patients lying on trolleys, are largely a matter of yawning indifference to them.

What really concentrates their collective mind is the who-gets-what mentality, and the perks and prestige that go with it.

What their leader did was pragmatic, yet he faced the fury of TDs and the astonishment of his ministers because of the Wallace appointment.

They were not jumping up and down because a matter of policy that might benefit people was not being delivered - they never do. Take the scandalous situation of nursing homes where people were ripped off over many years by the State and successive governments.

Eight months after the Government had promised action to allow for compensation to be paid to patients and relatives who had nursing home charges illegally deducted from them, there is still no sign of the necessary legislation.

There are about 70,000 people involved, and the total amount that the State filched from them is estimated at between €700 million and €1 billion. That money was taken from them over a long period, and they have waited long enough to get it back.

The political will to do so can be measured by what has been done so far, which is nothing.

Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney - who had been one of the loudest in the chorus of indignation over what had happened and promised that people would be reimbursed - is still merely promising that everyone will be paid in full.

But that’s all it is - a promise.

Now, when it comes to something like social welfare fraud the Government is quick to act and has a posse of inspectors to track down the miscreants, but it is not nearly as diligent when it comes to repaying money that it took, serially and illegally, from unfortunate people.

Ms Harney is now bemoaning the fact that some people are looking for damages, and if every one of the 70,000 people did so, the Government would be looking at a final bill of something like €6bn.

What she chooses to ignore is that most people merely want to get back what was illegally taken from them by the State. With interest, of course, as she has already conceded.

What the Tánaiste should do is insist that the necessary legislation be fast-tracked through the Oireachtas at this belated stage and begin to pay out what people are justly entitled to.

It is not rocket science. If some try to claim more than their fair share, it should not be beyond the capacity of the law to deal with them, instead of blocking the other claims unnecessarily.

IT CERTAINLY wasn’t the news from Fianna Fáil that landed 78-year-old Harry Whittington, no relation of the fabled Dick, in hospital in Texas. Or maybe he is a relation because poor Harry is going to go down in history as the man who was shot not by JR, but by the Vice President of the USA, Dick Cheney. He ‘peppered’ his Republican party colleague while they were engaged in a spot of quail shooting.

Harry Whittington became another statistic that is all too familiar to US soldiers and a few helicopters - friendly fire. You wouldn’t mind but Cheney’s game-hunting pal got shot on the cheap.

It turns out that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gave both men a warning for failing to buy a $7 stamp, or licence, for the quail-shoot.

Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where they were trying to shoot the unsuspecting birds, explained that Cheney picked out a bird and was following it. “And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered fairly good,” she said in that folksy way favoured by natives of the Lone Star State.

If Ms Armstrong had not told her local newspaper about the incident, we might never have known because Dick Cheney, in the fashion of the Bush administration’s weakness for secrecy, said nothing.

It took 20 hours for the news of the accident to reach the public because, instead of making an official statement to the authorities, Cheney told Ms Armstrong to tell the local paper - the next day.

You would have to wonder about the endorsement of Cheney’s shooting skills by the US ambassador to Switzerland, Pamela Willeford, in a comment to the Dallas Morning News. “He’s a great shot. He’s very safety conscious. This is something that unfortunately was a bad accident and when you’re with a group like that, he’s safe, or safer, than all the rest of us,” she gushed.

Harry Whittington, gushing for the effects of almost 200 shotgun pellets, would probably not concur with her description of Cheney’s prowess as a shooter.

The ambassador, who was a member of the hunting party, would have been well advised to exercise a little diplomatic reserve on this occasion.

Anyway, if she’s as good a skier as she is a judge of shooting, then she should stick to the homeland slopes of Aspen in Colorado and stay well away from fancy places like Zermatt in Switzerland.