Reflections of a Taoiseach Liam Horan Appointments TIMES I look back on the many inspired appointments I have made over the past five years. I’m not a vain man, but you have to congratulate yourself too. It took my old friend and constituency colleague Michael Ring some time to see the benefits for him in that crucial ambassadorial role I earmarked for him, but, with the professionalism that has long distinguished this fine public representative, he grew to like all that the west coast islands had to offer.
I haven’t raised the matter with Michael in a while, but I get the distinct impression he has really settled into the commute up and down the coast. It really is a pity the intra-island air service isn’t better developed. Maybe in time.
But still, the boats are fairly reliable. In point of fact, he has only been home to Westport on a few occasions since July 2007. He hasn’t been at a funeral in almost two years, I’m told. He is totally dedicated to the islands job.
But the occasional telegram from him fills me with cheer. “Kenny,” he wrote in his last missive, “I will sort you out for once and for all when I get home out of here.”
Genuinely, I can’t wait.
SPORT I still find it difficult to comprehend why I was in the firing-line for so much ill-informed and personalised criticism after the 2007 All-Ireland championship.
I have never denied our Minister for Sport John O’Mahony did play some hardball in the early days after our glorious General Election triumph earlier that year.
But was it really that outrageous for the Minister to make it a condition of the payment of the €5m grants to GAA players that Nickey Brennan and Liam Mulvihill immediately step aside as President and Director-General respectively of the GAA? I think not.
Hand on heart, I can concede that there was no great wave of disappointment – in Fine Gael, or, indeed, in Mayo – when James Waldron and Johnny Prenty took over those two key roles. But those men acted in the national interest at a time of crisis for the GAA.
To be fair, neither was there any great resistance on the Government’s part when Sean Feeney was surprisingly plucked from relative obscurity to act as Chairman of the committee that looks after fixtures, referee appointments, disciplinary hearings, and the like in the GAA.
But to suggest, as one commentator did, that ‘the hand of politics lurked menacingly in the background, Svengali-like’ was insulting, inaccurate, and downright mean-spirited.
I have known James Waldron, Johnny Prenty and Sean Feeney for many years and I knew they were decent appointments. To this day, I am at a loss, too, to grasp quite why the appointment of Martin Corcoran to referee the Connacht final, All-Ireland quarter-final, All-Ireland semi-final, and All-Ireland final that year generated such heated debate.
Martin is an experienced referee. He’s from my own corner of the world. He was entitled to referee those games. For the record, those games were Mayo v Roscommon, Mayo v Wicklow, Mayo v Antrim, and Mayo v Kilkenny – as you may recall, that was the year of the controversial removal of Kerry, Cork, Armagh, Galway, Dublin, Tyrone, Donegal, Kildare and Laois from the championship due to flagrant breaches of long-established GAA rules such as parading with socks down, having four subs warming up on the sideline at the one time, wearing hair parted to the wrong side, etc.
This Government continues to deny the allegations that surrounded us at that time. And we also stand by our decision to declare a National Week of Celebration after the stunning 0-5 to 0-4 win by my native county over Kilkenny in what many keen students of the game deemed to be greatest game of football ever played.
And looking back on it, it was a masterstroke to play the final in McHale Park, Castlebar. Pity Michael Ring was opening the Regatta on the Blaskets that weekend and couldn’t make it.
ENVIRONMENT When I went into office, I resolved to do something for the environment. As a Mayo man, I appreciate the wide open spaces, the fresh air, the mountain tops, and the like.
And so it was with some pride that I announced the Campaign to Promote the Intensification of the Growth of Rushes. This grant scheme was designed to reward those who diverted their previously unloved crop of rushes towards the production of bio-fuel.
And what a success it has been! We have lessened the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, we have made something useful to mankind out of a plentiful resource, and the air we breathe is fresher as a result.
Of course, some could only see bad in it all. When a Rushigarch from mid-Mayo purchased Chelsea Football Club for €40b in 2009, there was an outcry. But I was happy for everyone who benefited from this visionary scheme. Again, the fact that a special premium attached in the grant to those species of rushes most commonly found in the lowlands of Co Mayo irked the nay-sayers, but if I were to listen to nay-sayers I would never do anything significant for this country.
And if we are returned to office, I will press on with the scheme to grant-aid farmers for maintaining wild whin and furze bushes on their land. As with the rushes scheme, I will exercise fiscal restraint here by not extending this scheme to the off-shore islands.
The Youth There was some criticism when, in 2010, I appointed a Minister for Young People. This was long overdue. Young people are this country’s finest asset (after the rushes) and it was time we gave them the status they so rightly deserved.
My decision to appoint an unborn child as Minister was not without its detractors. I thought it was a masterstroke to make it a condition of the Minister’s term that he or she relinquish their office immediately upon being born.
That sent out the right message to young people. It said ‘you can never be too young in this country’. We had 19 excellent Ministers for Young People during the last five years, 14 of them from Mayo. And I remain adamant it was the correct decision that they should retire with full ministerial pension.
Country Pile Will we ever forget the wonderful day we clinched the deal to buy Ashford Castle for the State. My kids love it. They’re out there on the back lawn playing Gaelic football every morning. The asking price created quite a stir, but if this prosperous, proud nation can’t rise to €442m to afford their Leader a bit of comfort in his pile, then what hope is there for us?
The critics blithely ignored the fact that this figure was offset by the €10m we raised for the Exchequer by the sale of Farmleigh House to the English consortium whose work in transforming what was a white elephant into a beautiful, thriving, casino and lap dancing club has not received the unstinting acclaim it deserves.
Infrastructure On a clear day, I can see Croagh Patrick from an upstairs window here in the castle. And while some might accuse me of naked parochialism, I have no hesitation in saying that it does my Mayo heart good to see the helicopters landing and taking off there all summer long.
Some people, of course, are never happy. There has been a strong roads lobby in Mayo for as long as I have been in public life, and one would think they would be over the moon at the prospect of a six-lane highway running straight from the Monsignor’s airport all the way to the top of Croagh Patrick.
Sometimes you wonder why you give so much of yourself to public life.
The Islands Only today I received a rather gracious letter of thanks from one of the O’Malleys out there on Clare Island, thanking me for the little bridge I got knocked up for them out from Roonagh. Sometimes a little thing can mean so much. Gamma threw that bridge up for just over €200m.
What will you get for €200m today? Pity Michael Ring was on Ratlin Island for the All-Island Stone-throwing Championships the day of the opening. He’d have enjoyed it so much. He played a bit for Mayo in his time, Michael, you know.
