Reshuffle Kerfuffle — Seán Haughey, Swan Or Snail?

In his 2004 political biography of Bertie Ahern, author and journalist John Downing described a meeting a few years ago of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. Downing reported that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told his party’s Oireachtas members that he’d ‘fuck up’ any of them who ‘undermined’ him.

The Taoiseach is passionate about improving Ireland’s transport infrastructure to improve efficiency and quality of life, and enhance our attractiveness as a location for high value job-creating foreign investment. On a recent visit to India, Mr Ahern even got a chance to drive a sleek new electric train, and took the opportunity to make a quip about project delays arising from the planning process.

In Shanghai in January 2005 the Taoiseach told an interviewer that ‘naturally enough I would like to have the power of the mayor that when he decides he wants to do a highway and if wants to bypass an area, he just goes straight up and over’. But he recognised that ‘that is not going to happen at home. I would just like when I am trying to put it on the ground that we can put it through the consultation process as quick as possible’, he said.

In December 2004, the Irish Independent reported that Haughey had ‘appeared to soften his stance’ but ’said it would still be vandalism’. Taoiseach Ahern has never forgotten the development in north County Dublin which was delayed by environmentalists’ concerns about disturbance to swan and snail habitats. The development eventually proceeded and, Mr Ahern reminded the Dáil, the snails moved on to somewhere else and the swans have never looked happier.

Seán Haughey now seems to have taken the hint, indicating to RTE this week that he’s considering moving on from Dáil Éireann. Ivor Callely was like a snail leaving office after his sacking. Seán Haughey seems a lot more graceful, and looks set to glide serenely off the national political stage, like a swan.

Below the smooth surface he must be feeling well fucked up.