Grumpy and waspish politicians, luvvies and hacks of a certain age will be dusting off their bon mots and festering resentments next Wednesday when former minister Shane Ross, aka Winston Churchtown, launches his long-awaited opus on RTÉ.
Never one to sell himself short, the former stockbroker, Sindo business editor and TD for Dublin Rathdown is promising “a colourful account of the scandal-drenched history of Ireland’s national broadcaster”.
Winston likes his books on the sensational side which is why we found ourselves loitering in the High Court last January waiting to see if a defamation case arising from his recent biography of Mary Lou McDonald was going to go ahead.
Mercifully, it didn’t in the end and we could all go home.
Martin Lanigan, the husband of the Sinn Féin leader, had sued over references to him in Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle. The action was settled after the author and his publisher issued a lengthy court apology.
Now the irrepressible Ross is on the circuit again with RTÉ: Saints, Scholars and Scandals, in which he “winds back the clock to examine RTÉ’s history of broadcasting excellence alongside the accusations of corruption, waste and ineptitude it has faced along the way”.
Expect wall-to-wall Winston in the weeks to come on the national airwaves and in the popular prints.
The author has drafted in the wit and repartee of former Labour Party leader and minister Pat Rabbitte to perform the launch.
Most of the old Independent Alliance band will be reuniting for the launch. Retired former junior ministers John Halligan and Finian McGrath will be there, while two of them are back in Coalition government again as Independents. Kevin “Boxer” Moran, Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, is expected, but erstwhile colleague Seán Canney, Minister of State for Transport, is highly unlikely to make an appearance after he fell out with Winston over a junior ministerial job-share appointment in 2018 and quit the group.
Between all the old RTÉ luvvies and politicos, it should be a good night.
Doorstepping Bertie
Larissa Nolan, national director of communications with Aontú
The latest scribe to cross to the dark side from journalism to politics is the vastly experienced Larissa Nolan, who left her job as features editor with the Irish Mirror earlier this month to take up a role as national director of communications for Aontú.
With two byelections in full swing, she has pitched in with the party’s canvassing effort, knocking on doors in the Dublin Central constituency when time permits.
On Wednesday, Larissa, who is not from the northside, found herself in a rather fancy estate in Drumcondra with the team. When they approached one particular house, a garda emerged from his little hut to talk to them.
And then the penny dropped. The team was in Beresford.
Larissa asked the garda if they could canvass the householder but before they got to the door, Bertie Ahern was already on his way out to them.
Mad to chat.
Larissa – who worked for the Sunday Independent during the Bert’s Celtic Tiger era when he did his utmost to make sure “the boom times” were “getting even boomier” – said her natural instinct was to whip out her phone recorder “because in the years I dealt with him, Bertie was box office”.
But now she is on the other side of the fence.
They talked for over 20 minutes with the former taoiseach shooting the breeze on all sorts of things from the Belfast Agreement to his time as minister for labour, to the recent fuel protests and how he would have dealt with the protesters.
He also gave his views on the controversial candidacy of Gerry Hutch and his prospects in the constituency: “He doesn’t have a chance.”
After 30 years in journalism, the freshly minted political adviser told us she is fully aware of Bertie’s chequered legacy but, on her first canvass, she wasn’t expecting to come across a former taoiseach on the doorstep.
He was engaging and generous with his time. When she told him about the new job, he fondly recalled two former press advisers – PJ Mara and Mandy Johnston. He said he very much admires Peadar Tóibín, the Aontú leader.
But he would, wouldn’t he.
And then the former uachtaráin of Fianna Fáil told her: “I voted Aontú before.”
A number one vote?
“Yes.”
But this time he will be giving the Fianna Fáil candidate his first preference, with his second preference going to Aontú. After decades spent successfully pounding the pavements of Dublin Central, if anyone knows what canvassers like to hear on the doorsteps, it’s serial poll-topper Bertie Ahern.
“I voted number one because I didn’t fancy the Fianna Fáil candidate,” he rather unkindly divulged. But then, the Ahern camp and its notoriously territorial election machine was never terribly fond of the very capable Mary Fitzpatrick, who had the misfortune of going up against it on a few occasions.
Naturally, Larissa was keen to hear more about when he voted for Aontú. Exactly which election was this?
“It was either the last one or the one before that.”
2020 or 2024?
“I can’t remember,” said Bertie.
Fancy that.
“It’s not every day you meet a former taoiseach like that. I would have got a two-page spread out of him for the Mirror,” said Peadar Tóibín’s new spindoctor.
Killeagh la-la land
A good week for Fianna Fáil’s James O’Connor whose legislation to reverse the ban on nuclear energy in Ireland got a lot of attention as the Dáil wrestled with the knotty question of Ireland’s reliance on imported energy and the urgent need to address the issue by generating more of it at home.
O’Connor’s plan was called a “harebrained” notion by Labour as it would take more than a decade to get nuclear up and running and that’s not even taking into account the convoluted requirements of our planning system.
But the Taoiseach had already stated at the EU Energy Summit at the start of the week that Ireland should also seriously consider all alternatives to renewable power, including nuclear energy. He reiterated his view in the Dáil on Wednesday, stressing that Ireland should have a “serious examination” of nuclear power as part of its long-term energy plans.
[ Ireland should ‘examine seriously’ nuclear power option, says TaoiseachOpens in new window ]
When Independent Ireland’s Ken O’Flynn called for the lifting of the nuclear ban, the Taoiseach referred him to O’Connor’s legislation and said his Government would be examining it.
Micheál must be very pleased with young James of the occasional mutinous tendencies – his Cork East TD’s latest swipe at the party leadership came in that highly critical statement from Fianna Fáil’s three youngest TDs in the wake of the fuel protest a few weeks ago.
With James keeping his head buried in his nuclear legislation, the Taoiseach might get a bit of a rest.
And then on Friday, Deputy O’Connor was happy to prove that the squeaky wheel often does get the most oil when the contract was signed for the construction of the Castlemartyr and Killeagh bypass in his constituency.
Yes. That would be Killeagh of the Kingfishr song. And it’s in your head now. You’re welcome.
In October of 2021, as a first-time deputy and Baby of the Dáil, James threw a strop and threatened to quit the party if the coalition rowed back on promises to upgrade the road in his constituency.
He believed he was “lied” to by a “multitude of colleagues” with assurances that the projects were earmarked for commencement. “I feel I have been deeply misled. I am hurt.”
Micheál Martin, not for the first time, had to reassure him that all would be well.
Now James is circulating photos of the signing ceremony at Youghal town council on Friday.
He’ll probably put it on his Christmas card for this year.
Once he Photoshops Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer out of the front row.
Burning issues
Speaking of Jerry Buttimer, the Minister of State for Community Development and Rural Transport, was the delegated junior Minister reading out the scripted replies on matters mostly not within his remit in the Seanad on Thursday.
He was in for Commencement Matters, dealing with Senators’ questions on a diverse range of issues including international agreements, road tolls, domestic violence, equality, housing schemes and the tax code.
The tax code question was to do with suntan lotion and it came from the FG Senator from Limerick, Maria Byrne.
It is, as she rightly pointed out, an “all-important topic” as she asked for the Government to abolish VAT on sunscreen and sun protection products. Using figures from the Irish Cancer Society, she said 13,000 people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year. But even though the medical profession has long encouraged people to use sunscreen, it is classified as a cosmetic item under EU law despite being proven to prevent skin cancer. She has been asking repeatedly, but to no avail, to have these products reclassified as pharmaceutical.
In 2022, a zero VAT rate was applied to hormone replacement therapy, HRT patches and creams, and to sanitary products, while sun cream remained in the 23 per cent category, Maria pointed out. “I really can’t figure out why such products are classed as cosmetic,” she said.
(Isn’t it interesting that the products finally given a zero rating only four years ago apply to vital women’s items?)
Jerry Buttimer. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins
Jerry Buttimer read out a long, convoluted reply supplied by Revenue. The upshot of this Civil Service screed was that the EU is unwilling to budge on the sunscreen issue.
“They are pharmaceutical products that prevent skin cancer. You are 100 per cent right about that and I am not just saying that as your colleague and friend. You are right that sunscreen prevents skin cancer,” said Jerry.
EU negotiations to change other VAT directives also allowed the Government “to move the VAT rate for automatic external defibrillators to zero, which the Senator will be aware was a long-standing request of many in the Oireachtas”, he added.
However, he regretted that it was not possible to get any joy on the sunscreen front.
“It is my understanding that no further changes to annex III of the VAT directive are expected in the medium term, which is unfortunate.”
But keep on asking anyway, Maria – through the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Department of Finance and her European colleagues, said Jerry, reading from Revenue’s impenetrable script.
Also, he informed the Senator: “It would do no harm to engage with the EU commissioner, Michael McGrath, and other commissioners, on the matter.”
Maybe our own Minister for Finance, Simon Harris, could take up the cudgels so determinedly wielded in recent years by the lowly Senator. Simon’s sunscreen VAT exemption could be his equivalent of Micheál Martin’s smoking ban and, as the climate hots up, help cover the exorbitant cost of necessary sun cream during a cost-of-living crisis.
That would be only Tropic (Hawaiian).