The ard fheis was a hybrid of office party and revivalist rally, now it’s a convention of podiatrists

As politics migrates from church gate to Twitter...

WITH a few hours to go to Bertie Ahern’s keynote speech at the 2007 Fianna Fáil ard fheis, word swept around Dublin’s Citywest hotel that there was a big problem with the taoiseach’s script.

Rumours flew of ‘passionate’ discussions between ministers over last-minute changes that Bertie had made to his carefully negotiated and pre-agreed address.

As we enjoyed a leisurely mid-afternoon refreshment at one of the hotel’s bars, a breathless backbencher hurriedly recounted a stand-up row between Mr Ahern and his loyal finance minister, Brian Cowen, over the sweeping alterations the taoiseach had made to the speech.

There were wild tales of transport minister Séamus Brennan threatening to resign, of frantic phone calls from the Progressive Democrats going unanswered. It was clear there was substance to all this.

The previous Tuesday, Bertie and his cabinet had agreed that the tone of the ard fheis would be ‘financial prudence’.

Then, at around 8pm on Saturday, March 24, Bertie strode to the rostrum and, performed the most spectacular on-thehoof U-turn in Irish history.

He announced huge cuts to PRSI; generously increased tax bands; rises in tax credits in line with wage inflation; the State pension to be increased from €200 to €300 over five years; 2,000 new gardaí; more step-down beds; and lots more teachers. The expensive promises went on and on.

BERTIE had been spooked by two bad opinion polls and a series of exclusive articles in this newspaper about his, until then, private Mahon Tribunal statements. A few weeks later, a general election, the most exciting I have covered, was called and Bertie was returned as taoiseach. The country is still counting the cost of that ard fheis speech to this day.

No taoiseach today could get away with such autocratic behaviour. His coalition partners would walk out, forcing an election on their terms. Enda Kenny, never nearly as secure a leader as Bertie, would face another party-sundering revolt.

Now, ard fheiseanna, party conferences, are anodyne, micro-managed, tightly choreographed PR exercises rather than the uproarious, unpredictable hybrid of office Christmas party and hellfire revivalist rally they once were. And Enda Kenny, as he displayed once again on Prime Time last Thursday, is the least spontaneous, most carefully managed leader we’ve had.

And just as the headline acts have become uncontroversial, politically correct consensus men, the marquee event has become an empty ritual.

The line now is: offend nobody except your political opponents. Say nothing controversial – RTÉ will dutifully cover it anyway.

And most of all, don’t involve the rank-and-file in any decision making. That’s dangerous.

Fine Gael hosts the drearily slick political caravan this weekend at the convention centre in Enda’s home town of Castlebar. Next weekend, it mooches into Killarney for Labour’s annual do; the week after, it’s Derry and Sinn Féin. And at the end of April, Fianna Fáil arrives at the RDS in Dublin.

Chances of controversy, surprise or excitement? Zero.

GOD be with the days of Charlie Haughey, when national conferences even had their own anthems, like the Pete St John/Donie Cassidy classic Arise And Follow Charlie in the early Eighties. Images spring to mind of Paddy Hillery in 1971 telling baying delegates: ‘Ye can have Boland but ye can’t have Fianna Fail!’ Or Liam Cosgrave condemning a faction in 1972 as ‘mongrel foxes’.

Or even the ill-advised ‘Una gan gúna’ sketch, delivered by Twink and conceived by Eoghan Harris after RTÉ’s Una Claffey was groped by a drunken Fianna Fáil TD. That sketch blighted FG’s 1991 ard fheis.

They could be menacing events, too. Geraldine Kennedy recently claimed that former government press secretary PJ Mara advised her that she should not attend the 1983 Fianna Fáil ard fheis because the party could not guarantee her security.

But boring they were not. A Fianna Fáil ard fheis was guaranteed its quorum of eccentrics. And for all the opprobrium heaped on his head since, Brian Cowen was such a legendary party animal – in every sense – that politicians, delegates and journalists would travel miles to be in his company at an ard fheis.

There are still a few pints, singing and dancing but everyone keeps a watchful eye for the ubiquitous phone cameras.

Now Enda Kenny is in charge. Despite his bouncy, boyish public image, behind closed doors Mr Kenny has been likened to Haughey for the control he exerts on his party.

Many insiders blame his puppeteers, Mark Kennelly and PR guru Mark Mortell, who keep him on such a tight rein that the life and spontaneity have been squeezed out of him.

At the Mayo Convention Centre this weekend, the control begins at the front gates, tightly run by gardaí and officials. Woe to the journalist who forgets to get himself accredited or the delegate who loses his pass on an off-campus sortie to the local boozer.

In the days when politicians stood on the backs of lorries haranguing hostile crowds and ducking eggs and rotten spuds; when volunteers knocked on doors and begged for pennies at the church gates; THEN the ard fheis meant something. Then it was the culmination of, and reward for, all those cumann and comhairle meetings, all those babies kissed and funerals attended. The chance for the faithful to profess their faith on the biggest stage – a pilgrimage, if you like, to Rome or Medjugorje.

But politics has changed. New members can be found through social media, funds raised on Twitter and Facebook. Conferences are still well attended but by an increasing preponderance of earnest young men in suits and ties and women in tailored jackets and slacks, seeking to get on a ticket or advance themselves somehow.

They remind me of nothing so much as a convention of podiatrists or mobile-home salesmen.

WHAT do the parties get out of it? There is the free publicity, of course, filtered in just the way they like, congratulatory and unquestioning. How much they have lost, though, is incalculable.

A TD once told me that, on an ard fheis Sunday after a hard night’s drinking with Cowen and hundreds of delegates, he got a call from an irate man purporting to the head of a radio station. His female reporter was missing in action and he accused the hapless TD of being the last man seen in her company. He demanded that the poor chap not only cooperate with gardaí but take the reporter’s place and file the radio report from Killarney. Days later, he discovered it was finance minister Cowen himself, making a prank call.

They don’t ard fheiseanna like that any more.