BLAGAROON

The Dance of the
Sugarplum Fairy:

Probably the biggest distraction of the current General Election campaign in the Republic so far has been the dance routine of the Phoney Democrats as they didn’t say yes, didn’t say no, didn’t say stop, didn’t say go, as they pirouetted their way through the cluster bombs surrounding the path to the truth about Blank-Cheque Bertie’s extraordinary house finance arrangements, now before the Mahon Tribunal but, being leaked to the media in a calculated way by person or persons unknown. Caught off-guard by the leaks each time, the PD Fuhrer, Micilín Mac Doolittle, was forced to hire a telephone box in Kildare for an emergency meeting of the leading cabal of his 1% party on Saturday to discuss the latest revelations. Former leader Mary Harney, Liz O Donnell, Deputy Fuhrer, and PD El Presidente, Tom Parlon, reluctantly turned up to decide whether or not to stay on as Government partners with Blank-Cheque Bertie. Wrestling with their consciences, they won and apparently decided to stay on the Bertie bandwagon. Strangely, though, only Mac Doolittle appeared at the emergency Press Conference to make the announcement on Sunday.

Even more strangely, El Presidente Parsnip turned up on RTÉ television’s extended Sunday midday news programme in extremely grumpy mood at having to abandon his local canvassing for a cabal meeting in Mac Doolittle’s telephone box and failing to answer the questions of RTÉ’s Bryan Dobson who wanted to know whether the PD party were willing to vote for Ahern as Taoiseach after the election. Parsnip, who has the extreme brass-necked effrontery to re-name the Laois –Offaly constituency as “Parsnip Country”, spent his time on TV evading the issue and churlishly accusing the opposition of “dirty tricks” without a shred of evidence to back it up apart from a cryptic reference to “a leading member of Fine Gael told me that there would be explosive revelations on the 21st day of the election campaign”. This was greeted with derision by the opposition representatives, Ruairi Quinn(Labour), Brian Hayes(Fine Gael) and John Gormley(Green Party) and Dobson himself.

The story took a further twist yesterday as direct accusations by Noel Ahern, TD, brother of the Taoiseach, that the Grim Leaker was a member of Fine Gael “at high level” “But I don’t have evidence for that” were roundly condemned by the opposition party as representing a state of extreme paranoia within the Government party, Fianna Fáil. And who could blame them? With their “partners in government” waltzing to a different tune every day. The tune changed again today when Mac Doolittle revealed he had had a long chat with Blank-Cheque and Mary Blarney turned up on TV to announce she still had confidence in the Blank-Cheque supremo. And so, the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy goes on .. and on…. and on….


FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 09 Bealtaine/May 2007.