Enda’s stroke politics rubs his party up the wrong way

IT IS the little things that find you out, as Enda Kenny is now realising with his spectacularly botched attempt to promote someone we have never heard of to a nothing organisation.

Fresh from the glamour of a climate change summit at the United Nations in New York, Mr Kenny landed at the ploughing championships, right back on Planet Calamity, as it became clear that he had no intention of living up to his lofty, self-proclaimed aims of changing the ‘climate’ of political cronyism in this country.

Thank God there are still some friends of the Earth left, because if Enda cannot even pull off a tired old political trick, there is precious little hope he is the man to stop global warming.

To recap: a guy called John McNulty, whose only ‘brush’ with the arts would appear to be of the minimalist variety, was appointed to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the country, and then, days later, was nominated by Mr Kenny to the cultural panel of the Seanad — but there is no connection between the two events. It is all the most extraordinary coincidence.

Just how stupid does the Taoiseach think the people of this country are?

Asked repeatedly by this column if Arts Minister Heather Humphreys knew that Mr McNulty was in line for a Seanad nomination, when she gave him the plum post at the museum, Mr Kenny stonewalled, before passing all the blame onto the hapless minister.

Former Fine Gael justice minister, Nora Owen, mused that Enda had thrown Ms Humphreys “under the bus” with his answers pointing the blame at her.

But that is unfair — unfair to the bus driver.

Because Ms Humphreys gives all the impression of being someone promoted way beyond her ability, who has suddenly wandered into the traffic on the fast lane all by herself, and is now desperately trying to dodge the oncoming danger.

Defence Minister Simon Coveney, ‘defensively’, tried to retreat from the row and live up to his reputation of never having said anything remotely interesting in his entire political life, by commenting: “I’ll leave that for Heather to answer....”.

Good luck with that one, buddy, because Heather does not do answers. She only does repetition of meaningless banalities, while looking terrified that someone has actually asked her a question about the department she is supposed to be running.

When asked if she knew Mr McNulty was in the Seanad mix when she appointed him to IMMA, Ms Humphreys blurted out: “Yes, well, eh, I, when, when he, he did, what I want to make clear is......” before making absolutely nothing clear at all.

So, a rather squalid little squabble about the Seanad has been seized on by all the disgruntled backbenchers in Fine Gael who are angry at the way the party is going.

Indeed, John Deasy grabbed the opportunity to brand Mr Kenny’s style of leadership as “disgusting”.

Up until now, the Taoiseach could easily dismiss Mr Deasy as a one-man version of the Statler and Waldorf characters from the Muppets — continually carping from the gallery at the actors on the main political stage.

But that crude analogy no longer runs, as formerly loyal TDs have been shaken out of the woodwork to voice their own anger.

As Ms Humphreys’ constituency colleague, Sean Conlan, put it: “We are very fearful of the fact that the situation with the Taoiseach is returning to the days of stroke politics, and the days of Charlie Haughey, and we don’t want a situation like that. The vast majority of Fine Gael TDs want to see reform in Irish politics, and want the public to know that we don’t agree with the way in which this has been handled. We believe the way in which Minister Humphreys decided to place him on the board was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. It damages the image of Fine Gael.”

Now, you could dismiss this as resentment from those backbenchers overlooked in the reshuffle, but Mr Kenny can point to the fact that only the brightest and the best got the nod in that shake-up, can’t he?

Take Ms Humphreys: what a brave decision to appoint someone with hardly any Irish as minister responsible for preserving and developing the language. But, wait, surely Mr Kenny thought that through, and made sure her deputy was fluent in Irish, to help out?

Er, no, the Minister of State, Joe McHugh, is also as distanced from the language as Mr Kenny seemingly is from rational appointments.

The other extraordinary element of all this is the sheer audacity of Fianna Fáil’s leader, Michael Martin, and the spineless inaction of Labour’s leader, Joan Burton.

Mr Martin ran from tent to tent at the ploughing championships, expressing outrage that any party could stoop so low as trying to get someone into the Seanad so they would have a better chance of winning a seat in the next Dáil election.

This would be the same Mr Martin who used to run from TV studio to TV studio, blindly defending his then leader, Bertie Ahern, as Mr Ahern twisted and turned in the witness box of the Mahon corruption probe.

Mr Ahern’s evidence was not believed by the judges, and we still have no idea where all those cash payments, into the 20-plus bank accounts Mr Ahern held while finance minister, came from, so perhaps Mr Martin’s judgement on matters of political probity is not all it could be?

The Tánaiste’s attitude is more worrying, as she has morphed from rogue Joan to robot Joan in a matter of months, and is now afraid of saying anything that could annoy Fine Gael, as she mistakes timidity for team playing.

The Seanad shenanigans have stirred up a right pain in the arts for the Taoiseach and this saga is far from the final curtain.

But it is clear that while Ms Humphreys may be out of her depth, Mr Kenny is definitely up to his neck in it.