Did Callinan resign or was it just an Enda cop-out?

The Taoiseach’s much touted interview on Prime Time clashed with EastEnders, but the Fennelly inquiry and the ongoing saga of the former garda commissioner show Kenny’s better-suited to crime dramas

WE NOW know who killed Lucy Beale, but still have no idea what happened to former garda commissioner, Martin Callinan.

While it is nice to see Taoiseach Enda Kenny attempting to rehabilitate himself back into society, after four long years locked in the bunker of Government Buildings, there is not much point in finally giving a TV interview if you have nothing to say.

RTÉ were so excited about Mr Kenny turning-up for Prime Time that they streamed footage of him walking in the front door, as if he was arriving on the red carpet at tomorrow’s Oscars ceremony.

But then there was the farcical scheduling mess: the Taoiseach was bumped back down the schedules, because RTÉ missed the fact that the EastEnders murderer was being revealed. Mr Kenny could have been forgiven for snubbing them.

But he cannot risk such hubris, as we are now in the longest general election campaign ever and the Taoiseach is desperate to reconnect with voters betrayed by his rather empty promises of a new style of politics centred on transparent honesty.

Like the live episode of EastEnders, Mr Kenny’s first Prime Time interview in four years had fluffed lines, little excitement, and a very unsatisfying ending.

But then, Mr Kenny seems better suited to law-and-order dramas, as anti-water-tax protesters are being hauled off to jail while the greedy, plutocratic banking elite that plunged this country into disaster remains free-and-easy.

It is the full weight of the law for the anti-Irish Water demonstrators, but another order of drinks at the country club bar for the bankers.

If brave little Iceland can put its guilty finance cowboys in jail, why can’t we?

But Socialist TD Ruth Coppinger took the idea of political policing to its extreme by asking the Taoiseach, in the Dáil, why he had not arrested anyone over recent allegations of abuse at a Mayo care home.

The idea of Mr Kenny actually running the operations room in every garda station is a little unsettling — and brings to mind images of Inspector Clouseau.

And fans of the bumbling Peter Sellers creation will remember the French detective was continually prevented from going about his everyday work by sudden and unexpected attacks from his martial arts instructor, Cato, who would jump out and assail our hero without warning.

Clearly, in Enda’s version of the Pink Panther, Cato would have to be played by Alan Shatter, as the former justice minister is still smarting over the way he was flung from Mr Kenny’s inner circle.

He has developed a habit of launching surprise blasts in the direction of the Taoiseach. The Fennelly inquiry is trundling slowly towards uncovering what actually happened to Mr Callinan.

He suddenly “resigned” just hours after Mr Kenny had sent his emissary to the then garda commissioner’s home, under cover of darkness, to convey his unhappiness at recent turns of events in the force. So, all may soon be revealed.

Mr Kenny has insisted in the Dáil that he did not sack Mr Callinan, so if it is found that he did mislead parliament, the Taoiseach’s political career will be as dead as poor, cold, Lucy Beale lying abandoned and alone on Walford Common.

The Callinan affair centred on some of the many questions the Taoiseach refused to answer, or slip-slided away from, on Prime Time, but ‘Truth Time’ is coming for Mr Kenny, in the shape of the Fennelly report into those strange goings on last March.

How odd that Mr Kenny could not even give a straight answer, when asked whether he was one of the three people recalled to give evidence to the Fennelly commission. This after discrepancies are believed to have emerged in remembrances of the events leading-up to Mr Callinan’s sudden “resignation”.

What can Mr Kenny possibly have to hide?

But from crime drama and soap opera to tragi-farce, with the release of Irish Water’s strategic plan for the next 25 years, which tells us that the utility will still be splurging a fifth of the national supply through leaky pipes in 2040, despite some €17.5bn worth of investment having soaked into it by then.

Plugging the leaks was one of the main reasons for setting up the disaster-laden entity in the first place. So, the fact that the utility will still have waste levels way above nations like Holland, even after a quarter-century of mega-funding, merely adds to the sense that something has gone seriously wrong. The project has morphed into a political calamity of immense proportions.

“I don’t contemplate failure,” Mr Kenny sniffily insisted on Prime Time. But, unfortunately for the Taoiseach, failure has had plenty of opportunity to contemplate him over the past four years.

From the election-night cringe of informing us that he would tell Paddy what the story was (unless, of course, that story revolved around whether a garda commissioner was pushed from office, or not) to the grand plans for universal health insurance (which collapsed into the chaos still being presided over by the HSE) things have not gone the way he promised.

Now, Mr Kenny, in person, is a very nice man and certainly means well, but the Prime Time performance just leaves us wondering whether his prime time has now gone, and was there ever really any substance to it?

So, it was 11-year old Bobby Beale who did for Lucy, and the little killer explained away the demise by blithely stating: “She made everyone unhappy.”

Lucy was a rather wooden blonde, who never lived-up to her early promise.

Mr Kenny must now hope that is the end of any similarities between her and him, for angry voters intent on revenge.