Bertie changes tune as Callely joins Lowry on home affairs casualty list

IN selecting his generals Napoleon Bonaparte was more concerned that they were lucky than that they were talented. In recent days it is beginning to appear like Bertie Ahern may be running out of luck.

Indeed, his Government is beginning to take on some of the GUBU aspects that haunted Charlie Haughey's governments in the early 1980s.

In February 1981, as the Short Fellow was building up towards his first general election as Taoiseach, the Fianna Fáil árd fheis was designed to give him and the party a boost, but it was destroyed by our version of the St Valentine's Day massacre the Stardust fire in which 48 young people lost their lives in a nightclub in the Artane area of Dublin.

Nothing was going to bring those young people back, but their families could only stand by in impotent frustration as some people perjured themselves in denying that some exit doors had been locked in a reckless act designed to save money.

The aim was to avoid the necessity of paying doormen to observe those exits in order to ensure that people could not sneak in without paying.

It was one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the State. As the Stardust was in Haughey's constituency, the árd fheis was called off after the opening session. By comparison, the recent untimely death of Liam Lawlor in a car accident in Moscow was a tragedy for his family and friends, but not for the community as a whole. Hence the árd fheis continued, but the accident and the orgy of unfounded media speculation that ensued in some quarters overshadowed the proceedings in Killarney that weekend.

The Budget this week was overshadowed by the Government's own bungling in the midst of our unprecedented and somewhat over-borrowed prosperity. The Government had much more money to play with than in the 1960s during our first wave of prosperity. That was when ministers announced imaginative giveaways like free travel for the elderly, tax-free stud fees for the bloodstock industry, and the free secondary education on which much of the Celtic Tiger economy has been developed.

This Government announced new educational initiatives this week to cater for pre-school children and also for what was characterised as a fourth level, or doctoral level, of education.

The plans were announced, but they were largely overshadowed by the extraordinary events surrounding the resignation of Ivor Callely as Transport Minister.

FF supporters have tried to blame the media, but the media had nothing to do with Ivor's staff problems, nor with the decoration of his home. He had run through half a dozen private secretaries.

People like Michael Collins and Charlie Haughey had the reputation of being hard on their staff, but they commanded admiration because they drove themselves hardest of all. In the case of Ivor Callely, some of those who quit seemed to go out of their way to snipe at him. The various resignations were compounded by reports that he failed to persuade his personal assistant, Niall Phelan, to hang on with what was depicted as a "wholly inappropriate" offer of a new car.

The coup de grace was delivered on Wednesday morning with the report that John Paul Construction, one of the largest building firms in the country, had paid for decorating Callely's new home in the early 1990s.

This evoked haunting memories of what happened to Transport Minister Michael Lowry in 1996 when he was forced to quit the cabinet after it was disclosed that Ben Dunne had paid for renovations to Lowry's home. No doubt Bertie Ahern was conscious of the stand that he took as leader of the opposition during the Lowry affair. In both instances the work was paid for before either man became a minister. Although Taoiseach John Bruton had noted that, in relation to Lowry, Bertie dismissed the idea that this should be of any mitigating significance.

"The distinction drawn by the Taoiseach between ministerial accountability and responsibility for prior actions as a deputy is neither valid nor relevant," Bertie insisted at the time. "In general terms, the concern would be that a large personal payment to a deputy might influence his or her subsequent decisions as a minister."

ALTHOUGH there was an enormous difference in the amount of money involved, the principle was the same. "The first duty of any minister is to the public whom he has been appointed to serve," Bertie said. "The public are entitled to an explanation for the unusual character of these arrangements."

If he thought the people were entitled to an explanation, he undoubtedly believed that he, as Taoiseach, was even more entitled to an explanation, but he was unable to contact Callely either on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. He was obviously annoyed when he told the Dáil that he was "not impressed". After a long meeting with Callely, the Taoiseach was even more forthright: "I made it very clear I will deal with this in the morning and Ivor knows what I will do," Bertie said. While he had the power to ask the President to remove a member of the Cabinet, the cabinet appoints Ministers for State, and the Taoiseach had to wait until a Cabinet meeting could be called to dismiss Callely, if he refused to go voluntarily. The writing was clearly on the wall, but Callely tried to hang on. He argued that he had not done anything wrong.

His pathetic defence was compounded by the idiotic remarks of Tom Parlon, another Minister for State, who suggested the whole thing was a conspiracy against the Government. What was he suggesting, that there was nothing wrong with Ivor having the construction firm foot the bill for decorating his home? If Parlon does not see the stupidity of his stand, he is not fit for office either.

The Government bungled in its handling of the whole affair. They treated the Dáil with contempt in denying time to debate the Callely resignation. If the aim was to prevent the spotlight being diverted from the Budget, they failed miserably because they merely ensured that the resignation and ensuing Dáil brouhaha became the main story.

"A minister's obligations do not cease just because he has resigned." Bertie Ahern told the Dáil in 1996. "Resignation is not an excuse for going to ground and hoping that the public lose interest. That would be a travesty of accountability. The public are entitled to know the full reasons for his resignation, and why the facts of the case were incompatible with his remaining in office."

If that was true in the Lowry case in 1996, it was equally valid for Ivor Callely who went on Pat Kenny's radio programme to explain his situation, but did not face the Dáil. He was more concerned with publicity than with his ministerial performance. The Government made the same mistake of putting more emphasis on publicity than the quality of their performance. In the process they only fooled themselves.