Nell heats up the airwaves and does her bit forwomen
Sunday, March 14, 2010 Edited by Pat Leahy Not a particularly good week for Nell McCafferty, who came out with some outrageous comments about a government minister on Newstalk.
Though the station quickly retracted and apologised, Nell might find that she gets fewer invitations to speak on radio in the future.
But it wasn’t the bould Nell’s first mistake of the week. In a long piece to mark International Women’s Day in the Irish Times, she displayed unexpectedly sketchy knowledge of Irish Feminist History 101.
‘ ‘Mar y Robinson was elected president of Ireland in 1992 and served two successive terms, as did her successor, Mary McAleese,” Nell advised. Yikes. Mary Robinson was elected in 1990 and served (most of) one term.
Further on, Nell reflected on the progress in Irish society.
‘‘The fact that contraceptive practice is not yet the norm among sexually active teenagers signals that sex education still leaves much to be desired.
Women now do two jobs - working outside the home by day, and rearing a family by night, albeit men do a little more housework than they used to, and can be seen interacting with their children.”
Interacting, mind you, not rearing.
Anyway, her comments about contraception brought to mind an occasion last year when an AOB representative offered the same Nell a lift home after an engagement in RTE. Looking into the back of the AOB limousine and seeing two baby seats, she growled: ‘‘Did we not teach youse about contraception?”
* The great and the good assembled at the Sugar Club in Dublin last Thursday for the Bar Council’s annual debate. This year, the motion was that the Oireachtas was ‘‘not fit for purpose’’ . . . whatever that means. Free drink and some jokes were enjoyed.
The evening was capably chaired by a lawyer called Michael McDowell.
This McDowell cove is, it turns out, a man of some forthright political views.
In his address following the debate, he departed from a prepared script not just to give a spirited defence of the Seanad, but to pour scorn on the proposals of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to abolish the second chamber if he becomes Taoiseach.
Describing the proposal as ‘‘an act of populist self-harm thrown to the baying masses disgruntled with politics’’, he wondered: ‘‘Did nobody say to him, ‘Enda, it’s a silly idea and you didn’t even think about it for half an hour’?”
Perhaps this fellow should consider a turn in politics himself?
* Good to see that Ciarán Cuffe is not being distracted by all the chatter about the impending cabinet reshuffle and the Greens imploding. He has been active on the stuff that really matters, as last week’s parliamentary questions show.
‘‘Deputy Ciarán Cuffe asked the Minister for Finance his views on removing the tall railings dating from the late 20th century between the car park at the Kildare Street side of Leinster House and both the National Museum and the National Library complex, and replace them with lower railings so as to vastly improve the rather bleak high security feel to this fine public space in view of the peace dividend of recent years; and if he will make a statement on the matter.”
Alas, junior minister Martin (The Panzer) Mansergh replies that there are no such plans. Apparently, the railings are ‘‘security-related’’. He didn’t say whether they were for keeping the public out, or the deputies in.
* The contribution of the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who asserted that government was strangling parliament, caught most of the attention at the IPA conference last week. But the contribution of Pat Rabbitte was, as usual, also worth noting.
‘‘I can’t remember which of Woody Allen’s movies had our hero on the psychiatrist’s couch and no matter what question he was asked he would answer in terms of sexual imagery,” said Rabbitte.
‘‘I am bound to admit that when it comes to considering a subject like ‘Good Governance Values and Culture or Rules and Regulations’, I have a related problem. I cannot avoid viewing it through the prism of politics.”
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