Take note: It’s political patronage as usual

Michael Lowry’s ‘fine girl you are’ note to Enda Kenny in reference to Valerie O’Reilly shows that political patronage is as central to governing as it ever was, writes Michael Clifford

Michael Lowry lives in the real world. So he told Áine Lawlor on RTE’s News At One on Monday.

The implication is that those who made an issue over his “fine girl you are” note live in a parallel universe, many aeons from Mr Lowry’s flesh and blood world.

Mr Lowry’s real world is a place to behold, but first let’s look at what exactly the note says about Irish politics. On Wednesday of last week, Mr Lowry passed, through an Oireachtas staff member, a note to the Taoiseach.

Mr Lowry sits on the opposition benches. He is an independent TD since 1996, when he was forced to resign from Fine Gael over various improprieties.

Most independents have diddly squat influence with the executive, unless their support is required to maintain the Government’s majority. Not so, Mr Lowry, it would appear.

Could you imagine, for instance, highly competent independents like Catherine Murphy or Maureen O’Sullivan passing such a note? They, apparently, don’t reside in Mr Lowry’s real world. The note in question was brief.

“Taoiseach, would you please consider re-appointing Valerie O’Reilly to the board of the NTA. A woman, bright, intelligent and not bad looking either! Michael Lowry.” (NTA is the National Transport Agency).

Why, in the first instance, was this independent TD passing a note to the Taoiseach? The appointment to state boards is ostensibly a matter for line ministers.

Does the Taoiseach, with his punishing schedule, take time to give the final nod to the most basic appointments to state boards? Is he that obsessed with the minutiae of political patronage?

Ms O’Reilly is, by all accounts, perfectly competent. So too are many others with her public relations background, but one addition to her CV is that she used to work for the Tipperary North TD. She was first appointed to the board of the NTA by the previous government in March 2010.

At the time, the Fianna Fáil Green administration relied on Mr Lowry’s vote to maintain a majority. Irish Examiner political reporter Juno McEnroe has elicited from Mr Lowry an admission that he lobbied the line minister of the day, Noel Dempsey, for Ms O’Reilly’s appointment.

Was that the reason that she was appointed, or was it a coincidence that Mr Dempsey plucked her from the ranks of competent PR professionals?

On Monday, Mr Lowry was asked by Áine Lawlor whether he had lobbied Brian Cowen for Mr O’Reilly’s initial appointment, in the same manner that she had lobbied Mr Kenny for her re-appointment. “The answer to your question is no,” he said.

Sure, he didn’t have to. Mr Cowen had a lot on his plate. Mr Lowry didn’t have to bother him. He just went to the line minister, Mr Dempsey. One way or the other, the current government had pledged to end the business of appointing cronies to state boards, so the rules were supposed to be different now.

Mr Lowry told Áine Lawlor that once he became aware Ms O’Reilly would like to be reappointed, he did his own investigations as to how she had performed in her first term.

“I made my own inquiries as to how she performed on the board…(and was) told she was an excellent member.”

Good God.

The cynics might have concluded that Mr Lowry would have assumed, on the basis of his own knowledge of his former PR advisor, that she was highly competent, but now we find out he went away and did his homework.

No chance he might reveal whom exactly on the board he consulted about Ms O’Reilly’s competence?

The form of lobbying that Mr Lowry engaged in speaks volumes. Mr Lowry is long out of Fine Gael, having departed with the words that the then Taoiseach John Bruton was his “best friend, best friend forever”.

Despite all that has gone down since, it would appear that he retains certain influence in his former party. By passing a note to Mr Kenny, he ensured that his lobbying in this instance was beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.

If Mr Lowry had done his lobbying through usual channels, it would quite likely have eventually become public knowledge. But, in the era of the Freedom of Information, this is the way these boys scratch each other’s backs.

What the whole affair showed is that political patronage is as central to governing as it ever was. All that has changed under this administration of the “democratic revolution” is that the Taoiseach has tightened his personal grip on appointments.

That and the amazing scenario that somebody with Mr Lowry’s record can have such an influence of government.

The note really hit the headlines over his subjective reference to Ms O’Reilly’s looks. “Since you people in the media are so politically correct… I’ve never met a woman who had a problem with a compliment,” the TD told Mr Lawlor. Really?

What then if, for instance, Mr Lowry was lobbying a female Taoiseach to appoint, say, a buddy of his to some public office or other that was up for political patronage. Let’s say he wrote a note like:

“Taoiseach, a good looking woman like yourself might consider appointing a fine specimen like my pal to the board of… blah, blah, blah.”

Most likely the Taoiseach in that instance would relate the contents to the Dáil and the world, and poor Mickster would look pathetic. If he wanted to compliment Ms O’Reilly on her looks, he need only tell her when she’s asking him to see if he can do anything about her reappointment.

The reference in the note was far more concerned with hierarchies of power in a male-dominated world than Mr Lowry’s lame excuse of paying a compliment to a third party.

If the note represented politics as usual on patronage, then Michelle Mulherrin’s phone bill shows that attitudes to public money still leave a lot to be desired.

Ms Mulherin has emerged as the figure behind a €2,000 phone bill for calls from Leinster House to Kenya. She initially claimed to know nothing about it, then when her attendance in Leinster House was linked to the calls, she came out and fudged the matter.

On Seán O’Rourke’s programme on RTÉ, she claimed the main issue was the breakdown of confidentiality between an elected representative and a third party. Like Mr Lowry, Ms Mulherin felt the media were to blame for what had transpired.

Then, after denying the calls were personal, she stumped up the two grand anyway. The Mayo TD was subjected to an outrageous arson attack on her constituency office in Ballina on Tuesday.

An attack like this on an elected representative is, to all intents and purposes, an attack on democracy.

None of which takes from the story about the calls. Once again, the public are being forced to observe our elected representatives sometimes carry on as if they live in a parallel universe, one Mr Lowry apparently believes to be the real world.

Michael Clifford