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As coalition options become the next Election 2007 debate, the horse-trading is definitely underway in order to form the 30th government of the State of the Republic of Ireland. Enda Kenny still hasn’t realised that he’s a hopeless lost cause and that Bertie holds all the cards.

While browsing the Blueshirt’s website, I found an interesting image of Enda with Gordon Ramsey. The caption on the Blueshirt’s website is “Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey bumps into Fine Gael Party Leader Enda Kenny when both men were at RTE’s radio studios for interviews” but a better description follows the pic…

Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey has trouble digesting the shite Enda Kenny of Fine Gael is selling at RTÉ HQ

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Mayo joins many constituencies in Ireland to have voted for a Fine Gael-led government that now has no chance of becoming reality. Fianna Fáil’s last two TDs included Tipperary’s Dr. Martin Mansergh, the former veteran North/South negotiator in the Haughey governments of old. The parties now stand as follows:

Fianna Fáil: 78
Fine Gael: 51
Labour: 20
PD: 2
Greens: 6
Sinn Féin: 4
Others: 5

But what happened in Mayo’s 5-seater constituency is symptomatic of a swing towards the left. As the Western county elected no less than 3 Fine Gael candidates and a questionable Independent candidate in the form of Beverly Flynn, the county has firmly nailed its coffin shut. Dara Calleary took the only Fianna Fáil seat in the county while Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny took the first, carrying number 1 candidate Michael Ring and former Galweigian John O’Mahony over the line for a defunct representation from Ireland’s second largest county.

What will happen to Mayo in the near future will be representative of their blindness in electing Fine Gael representatives. Dara Calleary is the sole governmental representative in the county and while he certainly has his work cut out for him to undo the damage the county has inflicted on itself over the next 5 years, it would be difficult for Fianna Fáil to give much support to the county with negative influence coming from all but one candidate.

It also remains to be seen how well John O’Mahony will work in the county. He’s the current GAA football manager for the county and former successful GAA manager for Galway. While he’s not had the best luck on the pitch lately, losing to Galway by a significant margin, the work being split between Kildare Street and McHale Park will be an interesting balance. Also the conflict of which would win over between the €90,000 per annum salary from Dáil Éireann or the measly couple of bucks from the GAA.

In Enda Kenny, Mayo have also sealed their fate. While in the past Michael Ring was the only worry for a Fianna Fáil government when dealing with Mayo, now that Enda Kenny will continue to face Mr. Ahern in the chamber it will be difficult for Mayo to get the things it needs done - done.

Mayo has a lot to deal with now. With anti-Fianna Fáil representation in 4 out of 5 seats, it’s hard to see how the county will progress now that they’ve sealed their fate. As for Mr. Kenny’s influence in Dáil Éireann, after the 3.5 weeks of electioneering in which he constantly re-iterated the words ‘palpable mood for change’ and ‘when i become taoiseach’… empty words and broken promises. I guess he always knew that he could say 2,300 new beds and stick by it - because he hadn’t a hope of winning!

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Tonight’s Questions and Answers session in the bowels of RTÉ’s Montrose facility hosted the last public debate of the 2007 General Election in style tonight. With representatives from all the political persuasions that seemingly matter in this election were present. Simon Coveney was drafted in from Fine Gael, no doubt to keep the likes of the haggard Richard Bruton and whatever other aging clown Enda’s keeping hidden away from the public, to put a brave face on the boring party. Rabbitte represented himself, largely due to a total lack of decent talkers in the aging party. Eamonn Ryan from the Green Party reared his leafy head for some off-the-wall comments. Liz O’Donnell was fielded for the PDs in an attempt to make them look a bit sexy and Mary Lou was the Sinn Féin trump card (although the fact that Sinn Féin are even being asked to attend is eluding me now considering nobody wants to talk to them) and Fianna Fáil sent out the big dog Cowan to keep the others in check.

Cowan started off in his usual style, leaving the minority representatives say their piece and allowing Rabbitte and Coveney to peddle their wares for the audience to soak up. The drama all unfolded as the show progressed. Rabbitte brought in his no-doubt tiring anecdotes from the campaign trail about ‘on the doors’ and ‘I met a woman from Galway…’ shite that no one really cares about at this late stage in the game. Once his speil was said and done, Cowan went in for the kill. This is pure tele-visual genius. The big man from Offaly would make Mayo come out and hammer Galway last Sunday had he been given the chance to rattle them at half time. (Thankfully he didn’t and hopefully now John O’Mahoney’s dreams of being in the Dáil are dashed at last!)

Cowan is meticulous in his detail, cutting in his humor and a master of the surgical dismantling of the so-called ‘Alliance for Change’. One has to commend Rabbitte and Coveney for even showing up, because their policies seem to stand on the foot-hold of health issues, and the economy is now the voters concerns as polling day draws near. Rabbitte was left wounded on the battle field, and Coveney couldn’t muster up any argument without making a hames of it for the want of some media training. Rabbitte was so savaged that he had to resort to attacking Liz O’Donnell of the PDs in order to stave off the ravagings of the Offaly Fianna Fáil Finance Minister.

Mary Lou seemed to trod out her usual pile of complete shite about Sinn Féin being ready for government. Liz was a complete waste of effort tonight as she has pretty much no hope of ever holding a ministry unless she stops the whole ‘tut, ’ crap. Ryan for his part did the Greens justice in further talking about their airy-fairy notions of creating an energy strategy. Something worries me about a Green Party talking about energy – because they seem to think that solar panels and wind turbines biofuels are the only way to make climate change happen (but what they neglect to say is that so-called hybrid cars cause more carbon emissions than ordinary ones because of the manafacture of the acid in the battery packs!).

Overall it goes to show that experience counts. While I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that our health service isn’t in crisis, I don’t think Enda or Pat (or Podge and Rodge as one audience member called them) can sort it out. While I loathe the PDs, Mary Harney is the best person for the job.

It’s true what they say in the end: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

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I’m not one for the numbers game. I loathe accountants. But when you’re managing something like an economy, you need to keep a keen eye on the figures. Tonight’s episode of Polls Apart on TV3 featered Enda Kenny being grilled by Matt Cooper and Eddie Hobbs. While the style of the programme leaves a lot to be desired, the content tonight was breathtaking. Enda doesn’t seem to have the figures right in his head at all. You’d think that after the grilling on the numbers he got from Bertie last Thursday, and from Dobbo at Six, he’d have maybe whipped out the abacus and racked up the costs of his simply nuts manifesto.

Eddie layed into him about the hospital beds. Enda is standing firm on his committment to raid the National Development Plan and pay for 2,300 more beds. He’s already admitted that he got the figure from the ESRI, so obviously they’ll be to blame when he makes a collossol f*** up and can’t deliver the equivalent of 5 new hospitals in 5 years. My main question is, where is the bloody money going to come from? And also, if you build a hospital too quickly, how on earth is it supposed to last as a structure?

Also, if you made 2,300 beds magically appear tomorrow morning in our health system, you’d only succeed in getting people to wait in beds. You still need to sack the HSE administrators and hospital managers and bring in private industry specialists to run hospitals… but how much will this cost?

Enda’s also committing to cutting and freezing local authority rates. Then he’s going to proceed and reduce income taxes. And he’s also going to cut stamp duty and most like feck up the NDP. So, same old Fine Gael policies.

Soon we’ll be on 60% PAYE like the good old days, breeding a new generation of blue-shirt silver-spoon wealthy who put money in off-shore accounts. Of course, silly things like ethics legislation mean nothing to Enda… he’s already admitted that his tax policies will only benefit the top 3% of the population - so the little people don’t really matter.

Hardly what Michael Collins advocated - but I guess he was killed just in time before the real aspirations of Fine Gael were realised. The tasty rich filled his boots quickly and now every glorious 1980s large bungalow estate and fox-hunter in Ireland is a blue-shirt.

Meanwhile, us hard-working, enterprising young enthusiastic and economy-building workers are building our economy and supporting Fianna Fáil. Think about what you stand for. Then think what Enda would say to Paisely when the toys are thrown out of the pram again.

Total Integrity - what a friggin joke!

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Aengus MacGrianna may be the king of pinstripes at RTÉ HQ, but he’s also one of the longer-serving members of the Newsroom presenters. Today was a typical day for Aengus, he went to makeup, then wardrobe to select the day’s all-important pinstripe suit and off to the newsroom to take over the seat Bryan Dobson sat in for the hour-long “Campaign Daily” programme from 12pm to 1pm. As he approached the stupidly small and oddly-shaped desk in the walnut-themed box, he was no doubt handed the script, with the clock ticking down to 4 seconds to air.

After adjusting his seat and fixing his earpiece, the cringe-worthy music rang in his ear and the director (or similar janitorial person in RTÉ) said he was on. Aengus beamed into rooms and houses all over Ireland for his daily (although not regular) slot on the news calendar. He then proceeded to speak, whereby all sense of professionalism was scuppered.

The man is an idiot. He CLEARLY didn’t rehearse the main stories as he mis-pronounced practically every second word. He’s a wreck at this stage. The fact that he’s still there is beyond reason now. He and that droning monotonous sharp witch Sharon Ní Bheoláin should be consigned to history. Bring back John Finnerty on the Six One and put someone like Emma O’Kelly doing the One O’Clock news. Jesus it’s so simple! There’ll be no education news after the Leaving Cert is over so Emma will be freed up and to be honest, Sharon and Aengus are so completely useless now that they wouldn’t be missed in the morning.

Then all you have to do is get rid of the hideous sports woman presenter type thingy.

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