Ken doll Kenny is ideal leader for ‘puppet’ government

WE were promised Action Man Enda but we got a Ken doll Mr Kenny.

Sadly, unlike Barbie’s plastic boyfriend, our Ken doll does nothing exciting, like a Malibu Enda or Cowboy Enda would.

Instead, we get four scenarios: ‘a cycling the Ring of Kerry Ken doll’; ‘a climbing mountains with Trapattoni Ken doll’; ‘a posing for charity events at the fountain in Government Buildings Ken doll’; and ‘an addressing the nation via the safety of a protective TV screen Ken doll’.

The latter Ken doll has voice activation and says a few words, like: “The economic collapse is not your fault, Irish people” — however, the international version debuted at the Davos toy fair earlier this year had an embarrassing malfunction and started spouting: “The economic collapse is entirely your fault, Irish people.”

It is an odd state of affairs having a plastic doll for a taoiseach, but this is an odd State. Either Mr Kenny has had a total breakdown in confidence, or his handlers are so terrified of what he might do they restrict access to him as tightly as possible.

Even when he could have justifiably claimed a major victory in Europe (mainly thanks to Italian bolshiness, but let’s not get picky) over cutting the bank debt, there was barely a peep out of the timid Taoiseach.

No big TV interviews, no defining statement, nothing. Most curious.

It was also ludicrous for a taoiseach to go through an entire referendum campaign in which the country’s future in the euro was at stake, while refusing to debate the issues on TV.

The closest we got to seeing the Taoiseach in an exchange of ideas on the subject was during his train-crash canvass at Dublin’s Pearse Station, when his handlers plonked him down between a rubbish bin and a ‘no’ poster and allowed the event to be hijacked by a shouty British TV reporter who kept dragging bemused commuters over to argue the toss with Enda.

Our Mr Kenny Ken doll’s plastic coating was shown to be as thick as ever by two unfortunate events this week.

Unable to give leadership — or even an opinion — on some of the most-talked-about issues of the day, Mr Kenny hid behind the constitutional convention he wants to create, comprised of 33 politicians and 66 randomly selected citizens.

This was coupled with a denial of reality over Health Minister James Reilly being exposed as a debt defaulter and as someone who has not complied with a High Court order — that reality being the Health Minister should resign, or be sacked.

The Reilly affair also marked the occasion when Labour officially became the ‘Green Party’ of this coalition — in that they have given obsequious backing to a minister who really should be out on his ear, just like John Gormley did all those times with all those Fianna Fáil losers.

And just like the Greens, in return, Labour is getting none of its policy objectives through the coalition and is crashing in the polls correspondingly. Well done, Eamon Gilmore.

But at least the Tánaiste is still capable of actually expressing an opinion on constitutional matters, whereas Ken doll Mr Kenny is happy to let 66 randomly selected people tell him what to think.

But if we are going to have that sort of democracy, why do we not do it properly and shut down the Dáil completely, and just get 66 different randomly selected people to tip-up every other week, make a few laws, and pocket the €750 that deputies get for every sitting-day, not to mention the expenses perks?

Could we really do much worse? It would certainly shift the bias away from the middle class/teacher dominance that has always swept through the Dáil.

But, of course, we could end up with undesirables such as tax defrauders (Mick Wallace), liars (Bertie Ahern), people found by tribunals of inquiry to have committed a corrupt act (Micheal Lowry), international laughing stocks who had to deny being “halfway between drunk and hung over” on the radio (Brian Cowen), people who have given an untrue, sworn affidavit to the High Court (Willie O’Dea), or even a debt defaulter (Dr Reilly) — but I guess that is just the risk we will have to take in this new era of Enda-ocaracy.

Sadly, Enda is not the first Irish leader too afraid to lead.

The constitutional convention is just the latest in a long line of cop-outs.

Too timid to legislate on abortion rights, the issue is left to languish in the Supreme Court.

And even when there is a ruling, like in the ‘X case’, 20 years later the Dáil is still ducking its duty to bring in the minimal choice measures demanded by judges.

But, then, ministers seem to think they can just ignore judges; well, super-rich Minister Reilly does, anyway.

If a similar scandal had broken at Westminster, Dr Debt would have been able to count the rest of his ministerial career in hours, but this is Ireland and nobody ever does the decent thing, so Reilly can probably remain in the Cabinet for years.

This, despite Reilly being the first serving Cabinet minister to have a High Court judgement for debt registered against him, which also saw him and his €1.9m default appear in shame sheet the Stubbs Gazette.

The fact that he is a health minister shutting down 600 public beds for the elderly, while being an investor in private-care beds for the elderly, is another inconvenient little fact the Taoiseach does not like to look at too closely — especially as not-so- confident Enda needs to keep the Fine Gael deputy leader in place to stave-off another heave.

Welcome to the new politics.

Still, our Ken doll Mr Kenny remains Angela Merkel’s favourite toy; in an homage to Buzz Lightyear, she plans to insert a new catchphrase into Ken doll Mr Kenny when she opens him up next time: “To austerity and beyond.”