The Princess & The Politician

4th Aug 2010

When you see upstanding hard working honest Corkonians like Derval O'Rourke being forced to return to north Dublin's chaotic airfield instead of Cork International Airport with her silver medal it tugs on your anti-Dublin heart strings like Bernard Brogan on a Tyrone jersey.

While most of the country's athletes malfunctioned or put in mediocre performances O'Rourke was less than the width of a hurley from bagging gold in the 100m hurdles at the European Championships in Barcelona last weekend - a nanosecond behind a Turk who we'll assume wasn't on drugs and whose country we'll assume is actually in Europe.

Derval: Cork's Princess

With such unrelenting athletic talent on Leeside its ridiculous that O'Rourke wasn't allowed to come directly to Cork - we're sure the Dublin Airport Authority who rule the runway at the top of the Kinsale Road could have found a space in Cork's 'unrelenting' landing schedule for her aircraft to touch down. After all, the arrivals screens are getting sparser by the hour - Aer Arann were the latest airline to pull flights only last week.

So with successful Corkonians stuck up in Dublin we come to a sleazy Dubliner down in Cork. Or at least he claims he was in Cork at certain times or it seems he wanted to be part-Corkonian. It's Senator Ivor Callelly, the former Fianna Fáil Minister who had to resign due to undesirable connections to the building trade, that we speak of. He couldn't more un-Corkonian.

Callely would remind you of the stranger at a house party who arrives after midnight. Everyone assumes that someone else knows him. You know the type. Boldly strolls through the door bullshitting his way to wherever the fridge is. Mockeyeah friendly but really just looking for beer.

He sits in the corner talking what seems like harmless inane rubbish but it's only when he goes to leave with a coat full of cans sneakily pilfered from the ice bucket that everyone realises that this seemingly harmless drunk was actually a bona fides langer behind it all. The question always turns to: who let the langer in the door in the first place?

Even though Callely's name was tainted from the resignation of his government position Bertie Ahern gleefully appointed him to the Senate in 2007 when he failed to win his seat back. This flies in the face of the notion that all politicians who are forced out of government for sleaze get re-elected without fail. The public decided they'd had enough of Ivor Callely in public life. Fianna Fáil didn't agree.

And they wonder why the public have lost faith in them! Why appoint him to such a well paid position when he reeked of sleaze? You might as well go and roar such questions down a methane vent at the old city dump. You'll get the same smell of rubbish.

There has been some diplomatic dissing of the Dubliner and his spoof about "living" in West Cork and travelling to Dublin but the lack of vociferous comment over this affair from the government up in Dublin is typical.

Callely: send the dodgy Dub a message of support at this difficult time

Barstool punditry is always dangerous but in this case you can't help wondering if the throw away comments you'd hear around town about Callely's ilk are actually true.

Sure, they're all at it boy.

Maybe they're not all as mind-blowingly brazen as this dirty Dub but the pedestrian pace of other politicians' comment pursuing Callely's €80,000 expense 'dicky dodge' makes you wonder how many more of these scandals are being boarded up in the vaults of Leinster House. Now it seems some of his invoices were knocked up on the headed paper of a company that went bust 16 years ago. Are you surprised?

The bit politicians don't seem to get is the impression yet another farce like this instils in the public psyche. If Callely and probably a dozen others are all at it, what's a few bags of domestic rubbish slung in a ditch? A few grand in undeclared income from cash foxers? What's an extra storey lobbed onto an extension that you don't have planning for? What's the harm in exaggerating an insurance claim to wedge a few bob more for a holiday? Sure, there's far worse than me, right?

The bigger problem with pathetic failed politicians like Callely is that he makes citizens who live fair, honest and law abiding lives question the futility of their own way of life. Why bother spending €400 on rubbish collection when you can just lob it into a field? Why declare some extra income to the tax man when winking Muggins next door is openly bragging over the fence about how he always does cash jobs and is off on a sun holiday while you count the pennies? Who will thank you for being honest?

Unless the existing political dynasties are wiped out at the next general election the dishonesty at the core of this Dublin-centric state will continue unabated.

Of course, the political parties will send forth their spin doctors and declare that despite the lavish expense claims and the accompanying my-dog-ate-my-homework excuses no law has actually been broken.

This pedals another dangerous omen for Mother Hibernia. Instead of deciding not to do something because it is morally wrong, it urges a nation to find a way to fit the law around the wrong doing. There's an inference that if there's no law against it then your behaviour is acceptable. Just ask Seánie Fitz.

So 'honesty of effort' in this shambolic assembly of 26 counties is left to glorious Cork women like Derval. Meanwhile Dublin's poisonous politicians seem to be doing their best to portray the country as an unrelenting den of inequity and corruption.