Behind Closed Doors
with Cross Bencher

On the top of abysmal poll findings, it would seem that “No Tears” will complete the digging of Mr. Noonan’s political grave. Yet that major tragedy will be compounded if the public anger, bewilderment and questioning is mollified by demonising Michael Noonan and punishing him and Fine Gael electorally come next May.

Michael Noonan was not Minister for Health when contaminated blood was first given to patients. He wasn’t there when insufficient care was taken by professionals in the blood board; neither was he there when a high degree of negligence was shown by some of those same professionals; nor there when senior Dept. of Health officials started to become informed of the situation; and he was not Minister when the real cover-up was taking place.

Michael Noonan had many predecessors in office while the tragedy was taking place. It is surely fair enough to name all those ministers back to the nineteen seventies, the time of the genesis of this tragedy and its subsequent unfolding. I will also name the Finance Ministers, as funding stringencies may have had a part to play. They were: Health -Barry Desmond, Charles J. Haughey, Rory O’Hanlon, John O’Connell, Brendan Howlin, Michael Noonan. Finance - John Bruton, Alan Dukes, George Colley, Ray McSharry, Michael O’Kennedy, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern, Ruadhari Quinn.

Was Michael Noonan not in prestigious company?

When the time came to get serious about compensation and fessing up, would any of those eminent people have acted differently to Michael Noonan? The one who would be thought to be big enough for such a role might well be Haughey - he liked the grand gesture for feeding his image into posterity, but this matter was way beyond free toothbrushes or artists tax exemption.
Now Haughey did give a few hundred car assembly workers a very nice no-show wage packet for life at a time when things were getting tight; but he was also the Taoiseach who refused to give a few hundred thousand towards the haemophiliacs who incidentally were also receiving contaminated blood. The amount denied to the haemophiliacs was a fraction of what the ‘no-show’ car workers got.

Haughey called a general election rather than display generosity to the haemophiliacs but he thought Fianna Fail were going to be a shoo-in at the election. Ironically his health cuts came back to bite him that election, and it could be said that he never really recovered, but at least that bite was self-administered.

Brendan Howlin seems to have been the first of the Ministers to be made aware of the unfolding tragedy. In the face of mounting evidence, he eventually kicked for touch and appointed that perennial investigator and pillar of the establishment, Miriam Hederman, to investigate the whole matter and report back. The department’s cover-up was underway and the Hederman report duly told us the whole story. But of course it wasn’t the whole story - as we now all know.

Michael Noonan, who had played no act nor part until then, had to pick up the pieces. He proceeded to act with a sense of duty and responsibility under advice that was tainted by the decade long cover-up. He offered no weasel words; He has never complained at having to carry the poisoned chalice he was handed.

Yes! Michael Noonan might not be as big a man as Sean Lemass or Donagh O’Malley but he did shoulder the burden stoically. Would any of the others have done better? I do not really know but I feel a number of them would have shown nimble enough feet to dodge the bullet.

We should remind ourselves that it was Michael Noonan who took on Haughey, Doherty and McSharry and cleaned the floor with them at the end of their GUBU period. Noonan was never afraid to go out front and do his bit; when all around him resorted to the weasel word, which are now so much part of politics in the T.V. era, his waspishness would clear the air and point up realities.

Since becoming leader, his P.R. handlers have evidently convinced him he should try to be more voter friendly - cut out the waspishness and be all things to all men. This is a huge mistake. For twenty years in politics he has been up front, upright and waspish tinged with great wit and a sense of the ironic. In a party which has Alan Dukes, he may not be Fine Gael’s best leader but he is so far ahead of many on that front bench that he is entitled to the leadership and would make an excellent Toaiseach.

He ran into tremendous party problems at the start of his leadership which would have been much better dealt with by the old Noonan. He has just barely time to re-assert his old self to give his party a chance to return to Government. He should get out and fight a really tough campaign and overcome those slings and arrows.

THE GLENTIES GATHERING:

The Fianna Fail Convention was of course a foregone conclusion and it was quite amazing to see the passion that was generated by the big attendance. The team of Minister Mary Coughlan and M.E.P. Pat The Cope Gallagher is very strong so we can take it that Thomas Gildea’s ship has left the shore.

The enthusiasm at Glenties heralded a big resurgence for Fianna Fial nationally so the election is sure to warm up the whole body politic. It will be a long campaign and plenty of time for the various anti-Nice factions to get their act together.

Sinn Fein are on an early media onslaught and their campaign will be relentless. The back room politicos think that everything depends on T.V. performances in the last three weeks; the level of Sinn Fein’s success may tell a different story. It wasn’t T.V. performances that got Thomas Gildea elected last time.

Thomas Pringle will be casting for the young vote but he will have to make inroads in all the localities far outside Killybegs - there will be no point talking about the vicissitudes of the fishing industry in Bundoran or Stranorlar.

At any rate there is an interesting election campaign on the way and the big question will hinge around political disaffection and to what extent Sinn Fein and Independents will benefit.