Bertie unseen but still heard in the Shannon show

IT WAS the dog that didn’t bark who decided it at the end of the day.

A bit like the plot-line of the Hound of the Baskervilles, we were all listening to the wrong dogs barking up the wrong trees.

Over the past week, it was all Willie O’Dea putting on his own end-of-the-pier act. Roll-up! Roll-up! Watch the Minister for Defence in his all new rage and fury show. You think Gordon Brown’s four-hour holiday was self-sacrifice? Witness an Irish Government minister who has defied human nature by not taking a holiday for a full two years. Marvel as he builds himself into such a tornado of outrage that he self-immolates before your very eyes.

And, politically, that’s more or less what happened.

As a colleague acidly put it on Thursday: “Willie went one Morning Ireland too far.”

We have not heard a peep out of Bertie Ahern since the controversy first erupted 10 days ago. Actually for almost a week, it seemed the entire Cabinet had become anchorites, with Government Buildings shrouded in a monastic silence.

That was until Willie O’Dea arrived back from the first holiday he had taken for a full two years. And from there on in, we got a spectacular full-on Broadway production — a chorus line of 100 councillors and co-starring roles for half a dozen local TDs and two junior ministers. But there was only one star.

The Defence Minister gave a bravura performance all week. So much so, you kind of suspected he was beginning to believe his own invincibility. He would force, erm, persuade the airline of the errors of its ways. He spoke of Armageddon, of the mid-west of Ireland being cut off from the rest of the world because of the loss of Heathrow. Seriously, cut off from the rest of the world.

In his only substantial comments on the controversy, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said he agreed with Dermot Mannion that some of the claims about the downside of the Aer Lingus decision were exaggerated.

On Morning Ireland, O’Dea responded: “(Noel Dempsey) is taking his own advice. In this situation unfortunately that advice does not convey the seriousness of the situation here.”

A blooper, if ever there was one. The comments served to undermine Dempsey and his authority. O’Dea had overstepped the mark.

And still the dog didn’t bark. Bertie Ahern (still on holidays but apparently working away behind the scenes) said nothing.

But then on Thursday evening, a statement was issued in the name of Education Minister Mary Hanafin. In the second paragraph, it noted she was “speaking on behalf of the Government”.

The key line said: “As a listed plc, Aer Lingus has to take its own decisions. It is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision-making of a private company.”

That was it. It was over. Bertie Ahern had not uttered a syllable in 10 days. But the mark of the Anorak was all over the statement. O’Dea was now put firmly in his place. Two of Ahern’s senior loyalists, Mary Hanafin and Dermot Ahern, were wheeled out to repeat the Government line. Aer Lingus has made its decision.

It was the one act of decisiveness by a Government in a fortnight of blunder. At least, Aer Lingus chief Dermot Mannion knew where he stood before meeting local politicians and business leaders and knew it wasn’t a case of the Government showing him the door, as it did with Willie Walsh.

The stance will be politically unpopular. Ahern and Cabinet ministers will have a rough passage through meetings with its own representatives from the region.

But you have to also question Willie O’Dea’s judgment. Is he or isn’t he a member of the Cabinet and answerable to collective responsibility? As a minister, he was party to the decision to privatise Aer Lingus and should be brave enough to live with the consequences (despite what he said this week, the airline did not need to be privatised to raise the funds for fleet replacement). And he has put local interest above national interest on every occasion — on the deregulation of taxis; on Barrington’s hospital and frequently on Shannon. Other ministers like Dempsey (with an incinerator in Meath) and Micheál Martin (over Cork Airport) have been prepared to take the heat that goes with being a minister.

The dog might not have barked this week. But boy, did it still have a fierce bite.