Can Kenny lift the curse of Shatter the undead?

ALAN SHATTER is departed but remains politically undead, a troubled and troubling presence lurking on the backbenches. And Enda Kenny needs to sharpen his wooden stakes to finally rid the coalition of his malign influence. The former minister was at the heart of the Ceann Comhairle’s near-death experience, averted at the eleventh hour last week.

Seán Barrett acceded to Shatter’s demand that the Dáil not debate an inquiry into the Guerin report, which precipitated his resignation.

But Enda Kenny let him (Shatter) know the inquiry’s terms of reference a month before anybody else; it looked like a favour for an old friend.

When he was in Cabinet, Shatter attacked Seán Guerin SC and the Garda whistleblowers under the cover of Dáil privilege.

After his resignation, he demanded long and loud to be given an opportunity to clear his name.

HE continues to pursue his grievances about the Guerin Report and the findings of the Data Commissioner in the civil courts. Shatter tried (unsuccessfully) to have his name removed from the inquiry’s terms of reference but he did stop the Dáil discussing it.

To a layman, that smacks of having your legal cake and eating it too.

Perhaps Shatter’s efforts are all in the name of the administration of justice but some believe that maybe they really are more about Alan.

The Ceann Comhairle debacle was just the latest in a long series of Shatter-inspired fiascos that tossed the Government from chaos to crisis.

But the Taoiseach and his Cabinet are still in awe of the former minister for justice’s apparently supernatural legal powers.

Some former colleagues seem fearful of him and a few may even wear a clove of garlic around their neck when he is around. How can the Oireachtas not debate an inquiry where Shatter will be a central figure?

The suspicion is that it was because of a letter his lawyer sent to keep him out of any parliamentary discussion.

Q: Can one former minister’s clever legal manoeuvres dictate how our parliament does its business? A: On the Guerin report, yes. Mr Shatter is entitled to the same legal protection as any other citizen; but it is balanced against his duty as an influential public representative to encourage openness and transparency.

Big Phil Hogan’s water charges debacle inflicted a grievous wound on the Coalition but Shatter’s suite of fiascos have come close to draining the life blood out of the Government.

If Big Phil Hogan was a lumbering Frankenstein’s monster, Shatter is the sophisticated, aloof aristocrat flitting down from his dark castle to suck the credibility from Fine Gael.

Judge Fennelly’s report into the resignation of the Garda Commissioner may yet entwine the fates of Shatter and the Taoiseach in a fatal embrace.

Enda Kenny quotes mythical people from phantom interviews but he needs real firepower for a showdown with his politically undead nemesis.

Where is the Taoiseach to find his Van Helsing?

Political Draculas are not a recent phenomenon: the late Conor Cruise O’Brien, the most articulate opponent of Charles Haughey, wrote: ‘If I saw him buried at midnight at a crossroads with a stake driven through his heart, politically speaking, I should continue to wear a clove of garlic around my neck, just in case.’

Maybe Enda Kenny should take a leaf out of Cruise O’Brien’s book for a Bram Stoker-inspired epitaph on Shatter.