Healy-Rae looks to hit redial and turn around phonecall fiasco

YOU wouldn’t put it past Michael Healy-Rae to try to turn events of recent days to his own advantage.

In fact, he’s been at that since Wednesday and, I suspect, he might just succeed where it matters, among the constituents of South Kerry (although John O’Donoghue is well placed to tell him that’ll be easier said than done).

Just how will he turn embarrassment to his advantage this you might ask? Well, in the classic tradition of Irish politics, Healy-Rae has looked to one of his father Jackie’s closest political allies, Michael Lowry, and taken a leaf from Lowry’s political play-book, the page that’s marked “play the victim and get people to feel sorry for you, after all you’ve done for them”.

Paying €2,600 to cover the costs of premium rate phone calls made from Dáil Eireann to vote for his appearance in the risible 2007 television show Celebrities Go Wild, was a clever, if necessary, first step, as long as he maintained that it wasn’t his bill to pay in the first place. It allowed him to play the selfless patriot, eager to allow the country return to more important matters (and getting the media off his back as a useful side-benefit).

“I never made those phone calls,” Healy-Rae insisted in two lengthy radio interviews I conducted with him on Tuesday and Wednesday. Nobody ever said that he did. He couldn’t possibly have done so while play-acting in the wilds of Connemara. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t legitimate to ask if he hadn’t asked somebody else to do so on his behalf while he was away, or that he had no knowledge before, during or after of anyone acting in this way on his behalf. We’ll have to take his word that he knew nothing about it all.

All the money was for charity, he said, as if that mitigated the fact that it came from the public purse. But he did benefit from the week-long television exposure given to him. Healy-Rae was a councillor at the time.

Why was he, and not another councillor, plucked from relative obscurity to participate in this programme? Because he was piggybacking on his father’s fame to enhance his own political prospects (and indeed in recent years has acted as a spokesman for his father, even before his retirement). Healy-Rae got the chance to become a nationally known figure, which is no disadvantage in a local constituency.

Jackie was clearly determined to establish a family dynasty. He had two sons on the council after all, Danny as well as Michael. So the questions have to be asked of Jackie as to what he knew of this carry-on. The problem is that Jackie doesn’t seem inclined to answer questions when it suits him. He didn’t reply to a letter on this issue sent to him in early 2008. He doesn’t even remember getting it, which is convenient but also possible.

It’s also not difficult to believe that he didn’t worry about follow up correspondence. This, after all, was a man who was collecting near enough to €100,000 each year in expenses, even though he was known to travel by train to Dublin rather than driving. And yerra, wasn’t everyone at it, what with the regular use of free postage, unvouched expenses and all sorts of other perks? He also enjoyed the patronage of Bertie Ahern, who depended upon him for his vote. He had been able to persuade Ahern to arrange for Michael to be appointed to the board of the Citizen Information Bureau. Was anyone really going to take issue with the way he spent State money?

But let’s call a spade an earth moving implement here (and the Healy-Rae’s have made a fortune over the years with such contracts from Kerry County Council). The only plausible explanations are that Jackie authorised this exercise (and got somebody to install the necessary auto-dial software, unless some poor secretary was hitting the re-dial button for over nine hours without a break) or that Michael asked somebody to do it for him. Both deny it and, let’s face it, once the cost has been met there’s little point in wasting time or money in getting to the bottom of things.

The fact that an email from Jackie, sent to every other TD and senator requesting support for his boy, has been published doesn’t make things look any better though. We know from the letter sent to Healy Rae — and from logic — that every TD, senator and minister didn’t vote 22 times for Michael in this ridiculous competition. And getting support from Senator Ned O’Sullivan, who said he was prompted to vote from his own mobile, doesn’t exact help either.

O’Sullivan has featured twice on The Last Word in recent years. Once was when he loyally defended junketeering fellow Fianna Fáil Kerryman John O’Donoghue. The other, less well remembered, was a classic. Luke Ming Flanagan, then mayor of Roscommon County Council, contacted The Last Word office to complain that he, as a member of the Seanad voting register, had received a tie in the post from Senator O’Sullivan. Flanagan regarded this as a scandalous inducement, an effort to buy future votes, although one suspects he was equally upset by the sartorial demands of wearing such an item around his neck.

O’Sullivan came on the programme to defend himself, saying this complaint was ridiculous. He runs a drapery shop in Listowel and has access to a cheap and bountiful supply of ties. There was no suggestion, then or now, that State money was used to buy those ties; the expense was borne by O’Sullivan. (Another Kerry senator Mark Daly competed for votes by sending DVD copies of The Wind That Shakes The Barley to the electorate). But if you’re trying to convince the general public, as Healy Rae did, that there were many voters for him in Dáil Eireann then picking O’Sullivan as the example may not have been the wisest move.

It is easy to anticipate where all of this will head. Michael Healy-Rae is clearly angry about what has happened to him. His father was criticised often, mainly by the media outside of Kerry, but it didn’t really matter because he could be seen to deliver goodies for the county, to keep people happy. Michael doesn’t have the influence that his father had because of the size of the Government’s majority. Eaten bread is soon forgotten: John O’Donoghue didn’t escape the wrath of the Kerry electorate, despite delivering all sorts of expensive things, from the best rowing facilities in the country at Caherciveen, to the sports hall in Killarney where the vote for this year’s election took place, as he noted bitterly as he made his departure speech.

It is arguable that it was the desire for vengeance against Fianna Fáil that was the deciding factor rather than the incredible bills that O’Donoghue ran up as minister and ceann comhairle, but those expenses can hardly have helped.

Healy-Rae has all his excuses ready for any flak he gets in Kerry. He is not refunding money because he never made the calls but he is paying it anyway, for which he will claim credit.

He will emphasise that money went to charity. He will rail now against unfairness — as he did when I questioned him on Wednesday evening’s programme. He will develop “an us against the rest of them” approach. It’s up to the people of Kerry South now to decide if that’ll work.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.