Chilling
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The Irish political journos are feared the world over for their hard hitting work and fearless reporting
Granted nice looking dog and probably a good boy/girl
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Bród must have passed away.
He had a massive coronary from ateing Mickeen’s scraps
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You’re joking I know. Mickeen leaves F/all scraps by the look of him.
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Young man. Getting a heart attack at 42 is a wake up call alright.
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Consent
Robert Watt was the fall guy for ministers who wanted rid of Tony Holohan
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Cartoon by Tom Halliday
April 22 2023 09:11 PM
As children, one robbed a bottle of red lemonade and the other delivered bottles of milk. These days, both men live within a mile of each other on Dublin’s northside. Last week the legal system looked after one and the political system turned over the other.
Both men, Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch and Robert Watt, secretary-general of the Department of Health, have Official Ireland agog this weekend.
So who is the biggest villain? You would be forgiven for thinking it was the civil servant who dared to stand up for himself when facing the political theatre that is the Oireachtas Finance Committee.
The Monk was jailed for the first time aged eight when he stole a bottle of lemonade. Prison, he has said, was his university of life. He has spoken of the poverty in which he was brought up, which led him to become a criminal, although he has never been convicted of a serious crime.
In Dublin’s north inner city, Hutch is held in high esteem.
The decision of the Special Criminal Court not to convict him of murder was met with celebration on the streets through which Watt walks home from work.
That’s justice for you, a testament to the legal system, a validation of the Special Criminal Court.
On February 8, 2016, I was leaving a Spar in Fairview when I saw the killers of Hutch’s brother, known as Neddy, on their way to commit murder.
Watt buys his milk in that same shop. As a child, he accompanied his father on his milk rounds in that same area.
That was where the secretary-general got his education, on the back of a milk cart, knowing who owed what and, more importantly, when they might be able to afford to pay.
He got his formal education in Ardscoil Rís, nursery to St Vincent’s GAA club. So, no Clongowes boy is he.
But he knows how to look after himself in and around the streets of north Dublin.
Last year he was put on a salary of €294,920 for the considerable task of finally sorting out the country’s health service.
That salary put a target on his back, and since then he has been in the crosshairs of TDs and a media which enjoys nothing more than to kick him around.
But Watt can give as good as he gets, and frequently does.
Here is the milk-cart truth of the Tony Holohan story.
The country’s chief medical officer (CMO), unknown before Covid, rose to respected authority during the pandemic. He achieved a public esteem the likes of which politicians crave.
The evidence is that Holohan was a determined character, with the will to stare down politicians inclined to bend to whatever inclination was trending on Twitter.
Leo Varadkar tried to do him down publicly on TV; behind the scenes Micheál Martin routinely clashed with the CMO.
But the bottom line is Holohan saw the country through, and the public – and Robert Watt – respected him for it.
More than that, Holohan did so in the face of hugely difficult personal circumstances. Nobody would have had a problem with his appointment to what would have been a worthwhile position at Trinity College, other than a few stuffy academics who doubt his credentials and dismiss his real-life experience.
When the pandemic calmed, the CMO was exhausted by his day-in, day-out, two-year fight against Covid-19, and grieving red raw from the death of his wife.
He needed to move on, and bruised egos in government were glad to see the back of him anyway.
The whole thing landed on the desk of the secretary-general of the Department of Health.
To this day Watt could name the labour exchange in every town in the country. When he joined the civil service, his first job was to record the numbers of unemployed each week.
So, he would look at each dole office return and write down the “out of work” numbers on a spreadsheet. It was good training in the meticulousness of the civil service, and he had an aptitude for it.
He rose through the ranks while never forgetting his working-class roots. If you were to ask me, I would say his politics is neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil.
He was secretary-general to public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin when the Troika came to town. Colm McCarthy, the economist, tells a story that the IMF was so impressed by his understanding of the economy that it tried to recruit him before it left.
But Watt would never leave Dublin’s northside. He coaches a youth team at Drumcondra Football Club, plays golf in Clontarf, and supports St Vincent’s.
When you see him around the place, he is nearly always in a Drumcondra AFC jacket imprinted with the initials RW. His teenage kids attend local schools. He lives a simple life in Marino, the first ever social housing estate in Dublin.
And he set about implementing the unofficial will of government to move on Holohan. Last week, Micheál Martin belatedly said it was important that Watt continued in the Department of Health.
The secretary-general, he said, in terms of administration, had been effective on a range of fronts. He had brought stability to the department — and nobody could argue with that, certainly not the until-then flailing Health Minister.
But as he sat alone before the Oireachtas Finance Committee last week, Watt must have wondered where all his erstwhile friends were.
Covering their backsides, is where.
When the brouhaha broke around the academic position intended for Holohan, a report was commissioned.
Such reports are the last refuge of any fearful administration, intended to buy time and find a fall guy.
When published, Watt was left exposed for shortcomings in the modalities of a wider intention to move on Tony Holohan.
The report made findings sourced more in best practice than protocol — because there are no hard and fast rules in the delicate business of nursing bruised egos around the Cabinet table.
At the Oireachtas Finance Committee last week, TDs used the opportunity to buffer their own credentials.
The last lot to try that will end up costing the State around €3m by the time the former Rehab chief Angela Kerins finishes in the courts.
So, where would you prefer to take your chances? Give me The Monk’s court of law over a John McGuinness Oireachtas committee any day.
This weekend, I’d say, Watt is feeling fairly cheesed off. What a shame it would be if Ireland were to lose the best civil servant of his generation.
Would that trinity be as southside as the north side can get ?
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Thanks Fagan. What a shit piece, I’m sorry I put you to the bother.
A nice soft soap piece by Watt’s PR company there
No, definitely not. Clontarf is a fairly shit club, drumcondra and vincents are hardly posh. The northside is much more like the southside in Howth, castleknock or Malahide for example.
Or do you mean geographically?
Vincent’s was defo a place run like an old skool rugby club… an old boys club …they used to come from all over to be associated with them …I presumed clontarf golf club was similar … the area drumcondra would defo be upwardly mobile ?
Northside has a particular sociological meaning.
The “Northside” means Edenmore, Kilmore, Donaghmede, Kilbarrack, Coolock, Artane, Harmonstown, Beaumont (Bo-mount).
It means The Blacker, Northside Shopping Centre, Omni Park, Artane Castle, Janelle on the Finglas Road, St. Kevin’s Boys, St. Vincent’s, Erin’s Isle, Ballymun Kickhams, Trinity Gaels, Naomh Barróg, St Aidan’s CBS, The Donahies Community School, Howth Junction Dart station, the Carbury’s chocolate factory, the Tayto factory, the Santry river, the Grove, Stardust, Sharon Curley, Nicola Spencer, Tommy Broughan, Damien Dempsey, Kenny Cunningham, Robbie Brady, John Small, Keith Barr, Vinnie Murphy, Dermo Connolly.
These are the boundaries of the Northside. Most of what is north of the Liffey below these boundaries is North city. Some other areas north of the Liffey are not Northside at all.
Some do i suppose for vincents. But most are still local kids from marino and donnycarney though.
Clontarf golf club is a nothing club. Well to do clontarfers would be more likely to be members in Royal Dublin or portmarnock.
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The only meeja Paddy can get to print his scoop is Trinity news. Their website is struggling with the traffic.
It does seem a bit off that 6 days after the ditch tweeted it no one else has investigated and ran with it. Seems fairly straight forward corruption
This made me laugh more than it should have
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It seems so and seems bizarre it’s not been picked up elsewhere yet.
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