Killinaskully ministers - The great vaudeville Cabinet act

THOUGH fans of slapstick may be entertained the rest of us should again ask ourselves what have we done to deserve them.

Our diminutive but ever-grandstanding Defence Minister Willie O’Dea, suffering a dose of Saturday night fever in a Limerick bar, challenged a constituent to “step outside” when asked about his Dáil absence for a vote on Shannon Airport.

Showing the coolness under pressure more appropriate to a member of Cabinet, the constituent, former president of Garryowen Rugby Football Club and tourism professional John Fahey, suggested he’d gladly take up the challenge if the minister was “a bit taller”.

Goliath sparing David might be a pretty way to describe the vaudeville but in reality it’s more like a patient and fatherly sergeant major saving a battlefield greenhorn from a fatal blunder.

Another Cabinet member — Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Eamon Ó Cuív — has admitted that he cannot make head nor tail of the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Speaking on Newstalk he said: “I gave them some money... I can’t get them to tell me whether the buildings are finished... they can’t provide invoices for me...”

At least Mr Ó Cuív expressed anger with the way the HSE operates but if he’s unhappy why won’t he try to get it changed?

Did he ever wonder how Joe Public fares with the HSE when he, a member of Cabinet, cannot get a straight answer?

What has he done to improve matters?

Has he led the charge, or joined it, for the reform promised when the benchmarking process was initiated?

Unless he adds his weight to such a campaign for reform he will allow a process designed to improve the lot of every citizen — benchmarking — degenerate into nothing more than an on-tap gold rush for the 20% of our workforce employed by the State.

Maybe he’s too busy getting county development plans and signs on bohereens translated into Irish.

Mr Ó Cuív’s frustration is widely shared and that frustration only deepens when Health Minister Mary Harney, referring to an issue in the health service, shrugs like a duck shaking water off its back, saying that it’s a matter for the HSE.

Along with undermining the Dáil as a working forum and the emasculation of the Freedom of Information Act, the imposition of a buffer of bureaucracy between our elected representatives and the services they were elected to administer is one of the legacies this government can be least proud of.

If Mr Ó Cuív’s frustration has its roots in bureaucracy then Mr O’Dea’s situation is deeply rooted in buffoonery.

In a scene that will no doubt inspire at least one episode of Killinaskully, Mr O’Dea, a consistent poll topper, told a second constituent, who asked a perfectly valid question, that “I don’t give a f**k about you”.

If it wasn’t so serious, so demeaning and undermining for the country and our business aspirations, so utterly bizarre, it would be funny.

However, anyone who has followed Mr O’Dea’s performance on Shannon will realise it was made up almost entirely of man-of-straw posturing and the kind of hold-me-back declarations so favoured by aging corner backs exposed by a more fleet-footed opponent.

The sum total of his Shannon protest was a supine absence from a Dáil vote. Maybe Mr O’Dea will put his skills as a writer, so evident and emotional when eulogising his boss in a Sunday newspaper, at the disposal of the Killinaskully producers.

A Killinaskully biopic special maybe, more Gone West than The West Wing though.

Ministers Ó Cuív and O’Dea are unlikely to be the only ministers in the spotlight today.

Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin will have to add the greatly anticipated Amgen project in east Cork to the list of pre-election promises confirmed as fairy tales.

Amgen yesterday confirmed the rumours that have circulated for months that the huge, flagship project has been shelved. These rumours were scoffed at before the election. Indeed those who suggested that Amgen was delaying an inevitable announcement until after polling were denounced as political opportunists and cynics.

Those people are now certainly entitled to be cynical — the politicians who refuted the rumours have done their credibility and the credibility of the process they are involved in no credit.

Hundreds of millions of euro have already been spent on this project, and it is an indication of the great and growing challenges facing our economy that the investors have decided it should be axed even before a light is turned on at the plant.

The default statement from Mr Martin — “I am deeply disappointed... our immediate priority must be to offer every possible support to the 79 existing Amgen staff... job creation agencies will work... to find alternative jobs...” — is undoubtedly sincere but whether it sufficiently counterbalances the pre-election Amgen euphoria and assurances is debatable.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has his own unending troubles and it may be just slightly premature to label him a lame duck leader, but it is certainly time to measure him for the lame duck suit.

With ministers like these he may be glad to leave it all behind him.