Election season winners will be the connoisseurs of political silliness

WHEN election fever is in the air, all politicians lose the run of themselves at some stage. This campaign has been no different.

Here is my selection of the most depressing outbreaks of election silliness in 2004.

One of the first outbreaks of the election sillies was the "baby bond" proposal which Pat Rabbitte unveiled at his party conference in April. He suggested that when each new child is born the taxpayer would put up €1,000 which would be invested on the child's behalf and cashed in when the child reached 18 years of age. As an election gimmick this one was right up there with Fine Gael's plan to compensate Eircom shareholders.

The baby bond was ridiculed by most experts as uneconomic and socially regressive.

On one hand it would bring no real relief for 18-year-olds from disadvantaged areas trying to get into third-level colleges (which have been left underfunded by the Labour Party's abolition of third-level fees). On the other hand, the children of the wealthy would have the luxury of cashing in the bond to fund post Leaving Cert drink-fuelled holidays or as pocket money on their posh "gap year" world tour. It was a cheap stroke and was quickly seen as transparent and Labour has been very quiet about it in recent weeks.

Another outbreak of the election sillies has come courtesy of Jim Higgins, Fine Gael's candidate in the North West European constituency. A few weeks ago he promised that if elected to the European Parliament he would resign the seat he currently holds in the Seanad. However, he would only do this if the Seanad seat was given to a body representing Irish emigrant communities abroad. Election promises don't come more hollow than this one.

He should give up the Seanad seat anyway. It was an easy offer to make since Seanad by-elections are decided by a vote of TDs and senators and Fine Gael wouldn't have a hope of winning it given their depleted numbers in the Oireachtas after the 2002 election. Mr Higgins asks the voters of the North West constituency to be grateful that as well as being in Brussels on European Parliament business four days a week he won't also hold down the double job, salary and expenses which go with his Seanad seat.

Mr Higgins's election promise also lacks credibility when you consider that Fine Gael's candidates in both the South and Dublin constituencies have failed to give assurances that they will serve full terms in the European Parliament if elected. Both Simon Coveney and Gay Mitchell are prominent members of the Fine Gael front bench. It is almost certain that if there is even the slightest prospect of Fine Gael being in government, neither of them will forego the next Dáil election to stay in the European Parliament. Fine Gael is running these big names safe in the knowledge that if it matters they will contest the next Dáil election and at that point will quietly hand their Euro seats to their lesser-known substitutes.

Also up there in the election sillies is Fine Gael's stance on the citizenship referendum. Fine Gael is running with the popular hare on this one especially while polls show strong majorities in favour of the referendum. However, Fine Gael also wants to sleep with the anti-referendum hounds. The party opposed the timing of the referendum in the Dáil debate but is in favour of the proposal itself. One of Fine Gael's arguments against the referendum initially was that it was being rushed and that there wasn't enough time to debate it. Now Fine Gael aren't even going to use what time is available to campaign on the issue. Fine Gael tells us the issue is too sensitive to campaign on but these sensitivities haven't stopped their putative coalition partners, Labour and the Greens, from campaigning hard on the issue on the other side to Fine Gael. Whatever happens, it appears Fine Gael will be on the winning side when the referendum results come in. I suspect that two alternative press releases have already been written.

Fine Gael's double-facing on the referendum is matched for effrontery to the electorate's intelligence by that of the independent Mayo TD, Jerry Cowley. A long-time supporter of Marian Harkin independent TD for Sligo Leitrim Cowley was initially understood to be backing her campaign for the European elections in the North West constituency. Then Cowley appeared as first sub on Dana Rosemary Scallan's list of replacements which have to be declared to the returning officer. This is potentially a very lucrative slot to hold. If Dana is re-elected and later resigns, or her seat otherwise becomes vacant, then Cowley would get a free pass to the European Parliament.

Then last weekend Cowley switched back and now says he is in fact backing Harkin because the polls show that only one independent could win in the constituency. (It is not clear when, if ever, the polls told him that both Dana and Harkin could win seats).

There was another outbreak of the election sillies this week in the form of Mary Harney's declaration of support for two of the European election candidates. Harney wasn't able to muster Progressive Democrat candidates to contest the European election. However, this has not stopped the Tánaiste campaigning by proxy. This week she unsubtly endorsed Fianna Fáil's Eoin Ryan in Dublin and the Independent Marian Harkin in the North West.

There is some logic to the endorsement of Eoin Ryan. He is, after all, an able, middle-class candidate running for a government party. If the polls are even partially right the other government candidate in the capital, Royston Brady, doesn't need Harney's endorsements. In any case, Progressive Democrat voters are not exactly Royston's target audience.

However, Harney's endorsement of Marian Harkin is peculiar. The Progressive Democrats have been trying to recruit Harkin over the last few years and most recently as a candidate for the Euro elections. Apparently Harkin met the electability test you now must meet to be a Progressive Democrat candidate for Europe. Harkin has resisted the advances but the Tánaiste is supporting her anyway. In the Progressive Democrats' shameless quest for new recruits it matters not that nearly all Harkin's utterances in the campaign have been anti-government and left of centre. This surrogate candidature illustrates the extent to which the Progressive Democrats run the risk of becoming merely an umbrella for self-centred rather than party-centred TDs each free to stand by their own independent republic.

Fianna Fáil too had its own bout of election silliness this week. Somewhat inevitably Willie O'Dea wasn't too far away from the source of the outbreak. Last weekend's attack by the Sunday Independent on a senior Labour politician on the grounds that one of his children attended a grind school was a new low in Irish political coverage. Willie O'Dea should not have dignified it with a quote.