The politician who gets himself noticed is just the ticket for FF

DAVID NORRIS shares a record with Willie O'Dea.

Of all the current TDs and senators these are the two who have most often been called "a clown" by other members of the Oireachtas.

The internet now brings one great new tool to those of us who watch politics in this country. The Oireachtas website www.oireachtas.ie contains links to all of the Dáil and Seanad debates. The facility comes with a strong search engine. Just insert any word and it will spit out links to every occasion when that word has been used by a TD or senator.

When a blazing row erupted on Dublin City Council because of media reports that Lord Mayor Royston Brady had called one of the other councillors "a clown" I decided to search the site for the word "clown" to see how often it appears in the Dáil and Seanad record.

All parties have proved capable of using the word in the chamber.

In 1991, for example, Alan Dukes applied the description to Dick Roche. In an exchange in November 2001 Labour's Emmet Stagg accused Mary O'Rourke and Willie O'Dea of competing to be "the clown of the Oireachtas".

O'Dea himself has also deployed the word in attack in fact he made a habit of referring to Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan as the "clown prince" of the rainbow government.

Another word, similar to clown, which has featured regularly in the Dáil debate (although the ceann comhairle usually frowns on it) is buffoon. John O'Donoghue was usually the victim of this description with Pat Rabbitte and Brendan Howlin among those doing the name-calling.

Mind you, we could fill pages with the colourful adjectives which Mr O'Donoghue has chosen to denigrate political opponents.

Those Dublin city councillors who got so worked up this week need to chill out a bit. Firstly, Royston Brady didn't call them all clowns. He made the remark about one councillor in particular and on Monday he rang that councillor to apologise for going over the top.

Secondly, on the international scale of things "clown" isn't even a particularly offensive political insult. These sensitive councillors wouldn't survive long in the rough and tumble of Australian politics, for example, where parliamentarians have been known to throw a string of expletives at their political opponents most of them too blue to repeat here.

The old adage we were all taught as kids comes to mind "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".

The real problem that opponents on Dublin City Council have with Royston Brady isn't language it's politics. They have realised that Royston Brady is not just increasing his profile but is also attracting support among the general Dublin population.

I suspect that few in Dublin and even fewer in the rest of country could tell you who the last three or four lord mayors of the capital city were.

Whether it's because of his youth, his unusual name, his antics, his wedding or his particular ability at attracting

media attention, one thing is for sure everybody in the city and many more throughout the country know who Royston Brady is.

In the last few weeks I've seen or heard him on Ian Dempsey in the morning, Sam Smyth at Sunday lunchtime, TV3 on breakfast television, Joe Duffy in mid-afternoon and in lengthy (and at times revealing) interviews in publications as diverse as the Irish Catholic and Hot Press.

He does this alongside a heavy schedule of civic events across the city.

In raising the profile of the office Royston has of course also raised his own profile (which is hardly a political crime). As a result when Fianna Fáil found itself with a northside gap on its ticket in the Dublin constituency, Royston became an almost inevitable choice to run in June's European elections.

A procession of earnest councillors have suggested that the lord mayor should be more reserved and that his main role is to build consensus within the council itself.

Royston has been too colourful to work within this straitjacket. The lord mayor in Dublin, as in all Irish cities, has an office with a lot of trappings but no real power. Its importance lies in the choices a lord mayor makes in using the office to shine light on issues and Royston's choices have proved more interesting than those of his predecessors.

These days, few politicians in government or opposition open their mouths without a carefully-crafted

written statement in their hands (usually drafted by some well-heeled spin-doctor). It has been refreshing to see a young politician speak his mind.

The public crave a bit of unstructured directness from our politicians.

OF COURSE straight talking leads to misspeaking. Of course Royston's relative youth gives a naivety to some of his political approach. However he is riding the media rollercoaster well it's hazardous but it is also exciting.

The striking thing is that Royston Brady could actually be on his way to Strasbourg from the Mansion House.

Fianna Fáil has as many votes on the northside as it has on the southside of the capital but it has been more than 15 years since the party has had an MEP north of the Liffey.

In the 2002 general election, Fianna Fáil won the equivalent of two Euro quotas in Dublin. Even allowing for slippage in its support (which always happens anyway in Euro elections) Fianna Fáil is still well positioned to win two European parliament seats in the capital. Neither Fine Gael nor the Progressive Democrats has been able to find a high-profile candidate.

With the former Minister of State Eoin Ryan in Sandymount and Royston in the north inner city, Fianna Fáil now has a high-profile candidate on each side of the Liffey. If they can put in place a tight vote-management strategy with the river itself as the obvious dividing line, then they could both be elected.

Many are talking about Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald winning a Euro seat in Dublin. Royston could have adopted the Mary Lou approach to election campaigning with no local government or

national political experience, she stands mutely on Gerry Adam's shoulder whenever the cameras are around, seeking profile on his coat-tails. Instead Royston came out from under Bertie's shadow (although the media love to hold it over him). In 1999 he went knocking doors for himself and got elected to Dublin Corporation.

Four years later, his party colleagues, with Labour support, elected him to the lord mayor's job. He has precisely the same mandate as all his predecessors as lord mayor but appears to have done more with it.

There's a bit of the Howard Dean about Royston Brady straight-talking, edgy and volatile. These are the kinds of traits which make their political opponents dismissive and their own party establishments nervous. They are also the traits which make them relevant and interesting in bland political times.

It remains to be seen whether these are the qualities that will bring electoral success in 2004.