Now that the witch-hunt is over, the Golfgate fallen will have their revenge

Irreverent. Irrepressible. In the corridors of power

EIGHT weeks before Golfgate, 20 senior civil servants committed a ‘serious breach of social distancing guidance’ and posted photographic evidence of it on social media. They toasted, with alcohol, a work success, indoors, at a time when Covid restrictions confined us all to parties of six. Simon Coveney, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was made aware of the breach that night, June 17, 2020, and by his own account, he did nothing. He did not notify the gardaí. He did not initiate an investigation. He did not discipline the miscreants.

On August 19, 2020, a story broke in the Irish Examiner that a group of middle-aged and elderly men (mostly) had enjoyed an Oireachtas Golf Society dinner after a game of golf in Clifden. In stark contrast to Mr Coveney’s torpidity, the rapid reaction of senior politicians, the gardaí and the media was unprecedented. In the quiet news period of August, the media gave it real lash.

One can imagine that in rural Garda stations there were Starsky and Hutch-like scenes as breakfast rolls were dropped half-eaten. And the crime fighters bounced over squad car bonnets, such was their eagerness to get behind the wheel and find out what the hell had gone down in Clifden.

The gardaí, with no registered complaint from a real person, began an investigation within days. Was there pressure on the top brass?

SIMILARLY, within hours of the revelation and after a series of phonecalls with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, one of the attendees, Fianna Fáil agriculture minister Dara Calleary, resigned. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was in Kinsale on holidays and if he is a breakfast roll eater (we doubt it), it would also have halted halfway to his mouth. For he heard of Calleary’s departure on morning radio.

Not many days passed before Leo’s man, the former Fine Gael minister and then EU Commissioner Phil Hogan, another attendee, was out. The titans continued to fall.

RTÉ presenter Seán O’Rourke resigned. A number of senators, some with decades-long public service, lost party whips and positions. Supreme Court Judge Séamus Woulfe, uniquely among all those targeted, held his ground and stayed in his job.

Yet former TD and senator Donie Cassidy, 76, and independent TD Noel Grealish, along with two hoteliers, were charged. They were accused of organising an event at the Station House, Clifden, contravening the Health Act 1947, as amended, to prevent, limit or slow the spread of Covid-19.

I have two confessions to make: I am a golfer and I am a journalist. The second confession makes me aware of why the former is frowned upon. I’ve written stories about politicians taking foreign trips, or apparently enjoying down time when they should be working (which is all the time, it appears). If they’re photographed walking on the beach with the kids or painting the fence it doesn’t appear to annoy people. But throw in golf? Well, it drives people nuts.

Like many dreamy-eyed wannabes I played soccer as long as I could – perhaps longer than I should have as my knees will attest. When I was a kid, my dad and my uncles played golf, and my mother also took it up. My brothers and I played it in summer when the football season was on a break. When the day finally came that my body and my team-mates told me it was time to give up the beautiful game, I couldn’t say goodbye to my childhood, could I? So more often, I chased a smaller ball around a bigger field. It’s just a game.

But I understand that the silly clothes and the tradition of long, bumptious, speech-interrupted dinners annoy people. It’s a relatively expensive game and, like fishing or skiing, it requires a lot of gear (but here’s another secret – little boys love toys). Chief executives and celebrities play golf. American presidents, to a man, play golf. And all that helps to give the game an elitist reputation.

Yet when a black golfer, Tiger Woods, exploded on the scene 25 years ago, winning the 1997 US Masters at a Deep South golf club in Georgia that had, until a few years before, banned black members, the game moved out of the country clubs. Tiger Woods’s father was not rich – he was a former US Green Beret who had fought in Vietnam. More than 60 million people play golf now, many because of a black kid from a humble background.

JOURNALISTS, fundamentally, tell stories, providing colour and detail. What politicians, judges and well-known journalists were doing on that Golfgate day interests those consuming the stories, and precedent shows it. Details matter – just ask Tiger Woods.

Details also count in politics, but decisions really matter. Leaders make decisions. Leaders must block out all the noise and bias and pressure. And in a lonely moment a man or woman must make the call. Be it war or sacking a colleague, it will be the leader who answers for their judgment.

Judge Mary Fahy passed judgement on the charges brought before her this week. She dismissed them and spoke of the unjust actions against people who attended the golf dinner, long before anyone came before the court.

I sought statistics from the authorities on the number of times a person or corporate entity was prosecuted for allegedly contravening the amended 1947 Act by organising a Covid-breaching event. There are no statistics, as it didn’t happen often enough to warrant data collection. That means very rarely.

The political effects of Golfgate are deep. Now, in the aftermath of the court decision, one can conclude that Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar panicked. And leaders can’t panic. During a pandemic, when people are dying and our civil liberties are curtailed, everyone else can be forgiven for becoming rattled. You and I, we all make mistakes.

But Dara Calleary has given 15 years of unblemished service to Mayo as a TD. He has served in two governments as minister and he has built up a large body of support. Phil Hogan was a player in Fine Gael for over 30 years and is still deeply respected in that party. These two men and their supporters will not forgive Mr Martin or Mr Varadkar.

There is widespread acrimony in the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parliamentary parties over the savage actions against these two men, and not only these two. Popular (and quietly powerful) Fine Gael senators Paddy Burke, Jerry Buttimer and John Cummins, and Fianna Fáil senators Paul Daly, Niall Blaney and Aidan Davitt, were all publicly humiliated and stripped of party whips before any due process.

The gardaí, the media, the judiciary and the public will be analysed for their treatment of politicians during this fiasco. But what of the treatment by party leaders of their loyal colleagues? In Wild West parlance, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have been shown to be ‘hanging judges’.

In 2019 there was another ‘gate’, Votegate, when TDs were accused of voting on behalf of absent colleagues. Two high-ranking Fianna Fáil TDs, Niall Collins and Timmy Dooley, who had led Micheál Martin’s praetorian guard for a decade, were summarily sacked from the front bench. However, within days it became apparent that practically the whole Dáil was at it.

In July 2020, Barry Cowen was sacked after only 17 days as minister for agriculture because Mr Martin said he wouldn’t go before the Dáil to answer questions on media allegations about his behaviour after a drink-driving offence. Mr Cowen contested that he was entitled to the due process of a GSOC investigation.

Similarly, Mr Varadkar has shown little pity for colleagues in trouble. Witness the savage dismissal of his political mentor, Frances Fitzgerald. His own praetorian guard – Eoghan Murphy, Michael D’Arcy and John Paul Phelan – were coldly overlooked when a new government was formed. And Phil Hogan can never return to frontline politics but his friends tell me he will quench his thirst for vengeance.

The Golfgate saga is over. Golfgate II: The Thirst for Revenge

begins.