FINE GAEL MINISTERS WILL GET LESSONS IN ACTING

A bonding session for Varadkar and his colleagues

FINE GAEL ministers and TDs will spend an afternoon this week taking part in an actors’ workshop at their annual parliamentary party think-in, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, the Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, Health Minister Simon Harris and other ministers are expected to attend.

However, the classes have led to some division among ordinary party TDs – with one dismissing the notion of ministers ‘prancing about in tights’, while another defended the idea, saying: ‘We need to be able to emote better as politicians.’

The workshop, at the new Humanities building in NUI, Galway, will be part of a bonding and team-building session at the

Fine Gael away-day on Thursday. A number of TDs who have been let in on the tightly guarded secret told the MoS that they will do their best to avoid this particular ‘bonding’ module.

One said: ‘With homeless figures about to hit 10,000 and the cervical cancer scandal growing, I don’t believe it is a smart move for our Taoiseach and ministers to be prancing around in tights, spouting Shakespeare, or Tennessee Williams. I’m going to develop a tummy bug or organise a media interview to get out of that one.’

However, a party source said that this is part of Fine Gael’s attempt to make the party more ‘relevant’, adding that it would introduce ‘bonding practices that the corporate world will be familiar with’.

The insider, who knows about the organisation of the think-in, said: ‘Fine Gael is full of solicitors and barristers, and a number of them pointed out that solicitors training at Blackhall Place used to bring in the Gaiety School of Acting to do actors’ workshops with trainees.

‘A solicitor needs to be able to tell and emote a client’s story, so this is similar. We need to be able to emote better as politicians,’ they said.

According to the website of Creative Ireland, which is organising the classes, its programme is ‘guided by a vision that every person in Ireland will have the opportunity to realise their full creative potential. It is a five-year all-of-Government initiative, from 2017 to 2022, to place creativity at the centre of public policy.’

Mr Varadkar’s former chief spin doctor, John Concannon, was previously head of Creative Ireland.

These party think-ins have become regular events, however, an increasing number of politicians

‘I’ll develop a tummy bug to get out of this’

are questioning their value. The practice was introduced to Irish politics by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in 2004.

They bring their parliamentary party members to a hotel where they spend a couple of days listening to presentations on policy.

Fine Gael will hold their’s at the Galway Bay Hotel in Salthill.

The party also held bonding games and exercises at last year’s think-in at Clonmel and the parliamentary party chairman Martin Heydon, who organises the gathering, liked what he saw.

He engaged the help of Galway Fine Gael TD Hildegarde Naughton, who is involved in amateur dramatic circles in Galway.

Ms Naughton is a classically trained soprano and in 2008 won the Association of Irish Musical Societies’ Best Actress award for her role as Eliza Doolittle in the Galway Patrician Musical Society’s production of the musical, My Fair Lady.

Mr Heydon has a taste for amateur dramatics too, he starred in his own bizarre election video in the past – which used Back To The Future as a motif.

Repeated efforts to contact Mr Heydon were not responded to, and Ms Naughton did not reply to requests for further details.

NUI, Galway has an MA course in Drama and Theatre, as well as two theatres.

Ministers told the MoS that, over two days of the party think-in, the agenda that is set out will concentrate on ‘social issues rather than the economy’.

Health Minister Simon Harris is scheduled to host a session on the future of the health service and Social Welfare Minister Regina Doherty will also give a talk.

However, before dinner on Thursday evening the acting

workshop will be held by dramatists from a local acting school.

Some Fine Gael TDs, when they

‘Excuse for Leo to get his photo in the paper’

learned of the plan, were concerned that the idea was unwise.

‘I don’t see the value of these things. Anyway, it’s usually an excuse for the Taoiseach to get his photo in the newspaper, and it’s not as if he’s short of those opportunities,’ said a Fine Gael TD.

‘There has already been one very infamous parliamentary party think-in disaster in Galway – Brian Cowen’s singing and “congested” interview at the Ardilaun in 2010.’

One Fine Gael TD said: ‘They were trying to keep all this quiet, but that has not succeeded.

‘We are not sure why it is supposed to be such a big secret, but it will be communicated to them that this is not a good idea.’

The party press office said Mr Heydon is ultimately responsible for the details of the meeting.

Sources pointed out that one of the main problems with the latest plan is that it will play into stereotypes of Fine Gael.

The party is already fighting accusations of being led by an ‘elitist’ clique of ‘posh boys’.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy,