Details, details, details…

That’s what this election is coming down to – and it’s refreshing. People are getting picky about exactly what’s being promised for once in Irish politics.

Often, my exasperation as a journalist in Dublin was the stream of tit-for-tat bullshit and figure-churning offered by politicians in lieu of real politicking. Skewed figures and blatant lies are emitted from press offices on a day-to-day basis while the Dail is in session, with press releases issued like shrapnel. Much of the dross doesn’t hit flesh, but at the moment, with time ticking away for all concerned, there are quite a few wounded bears wandering around out there, angry and dangerous.

First off the bat was John Gormley, who led a one-man attack in the Battle of Ranelagh. He bayonetted Michael McDowell by demanding that he retract falsifications in his manifesto that, if true, would cut Green policy off at the knees.  McD refused, and insisted Gormley had only inflicted a flesh wound and soldiered on with the press gathering, but everyone there smelt blood.

Next up was Bertie, who laid Enda Kenny out by picking holes in the FG/Labour costings. Enda reeled, tried valiantly to parry with one-word jabs, but was left for dead on matters of health and budgeting.

Pat Rabbitte had a go at Bertie for peddling untruths about how few people would benefit from the FG/Labour proposed tax cuts. FF say that only three per cent of people would benefit. Of this, Thumper said: “They are spreading big lies… like the big lie in the papers yesterday about the advertisements on tax which were patently and transparently false.”

The Taoiseach ultimately fell on his own sword, however, and it happened last night on RTE’s SixOne news. Brian Dobson did a hatchet job on the Taoiseach’s, and Brian Cowen’s, bungling of figures for tax lost to the Exchequer from plans to build private hospitals. He grappled with the issue of the claim above, that only three per cent would benefit, by asking the Taoiseach how many people would actually pay less tax under it. The answer was somewhere close to a million. Mr Ahern was forced to admit that that was considerably more than three per cent of Ireland’s 4million population.

Another exasperating trait of politicians is to insist they didn’t say things that are on the record. It’s happened to me on numerous occasions, the old ‘you must be mistaken’ chestnut, and it’s an insult to the intelligence. In this regard, Mr Dobson hung Bertie with his own quotes from a UTV interview. He let out the line, allowing Bertie to deny that he had referred to health as a ‘peripheral issue’, then reeled him back in, using his own quotes to prove him wrong. Not a good look for a Taoiseach, who was already looking forgetful.

Then, as he stumbled through the aforementioned figures, it became a matter of ‘practice what you preach’, as Mr Dobson reprimanded the Taoiseach for being unable to provide clarity on figures, when deriding Fine Gael for doing the very same thing.

I’ve always credited the Taoiseach with having a great grasp of the figures and the issues, far beyond that of the opposition, but this was a slip-up, and a very visible and poorly timed one, at that.

ends