Willie O'Dea

On the face of it, Willie O’Dea has the kind of moustache that must surely make The Beatles’ ‘I Am The Walrus’ his favourite song. But look closer at O’Dea’s role of Minister of State and he emerges as more of a beaver, frantically burrowing away at what used to be totally archaic and disgracefully under-funded areas such as Adult Education and School Transport. In this sense Willie O’ Dea may even be one of the best appointees of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who, when he offered O’ Dea the gig, promised he’d fully back him, at a cabinet level, in terms of hard cash. And did.

In fact, before we focus on colourful issues such as the taxi drivers O’Dea told to “keep fighting” against his own Government’s Deregulation plans; Fine Gael’s recent “windfall”, “head-butter” Michael Noonan; Charlie Haughey; RTE; and, indeed, O’Dea’s own experience of those old reliables, drink and drugs – let’s look at some pretty startling figures.

Last year, in a long-awaited White Paper on Adult Education the government pledged £1bn for Adult Education alone. Meaning, for example, that the relatively measly £850,000 being spent on Adult Education when O’ Dea came into office three years ago, sky-rocketed to £7.8 million last year. And this money is being spent on a truly radical overhaul of all areas under O’ Dea’s control, in ways that will benefit 320,000 people over the next five years.

But enough for now, of the Party Political Broadcast. There also is the question of that Groucho Marx moustache. So how else would we begin a hotpress interview, than by bringing up this highly sensitive subject within the hallowed portals of Leinster House.

Joe Jackson: Do you often get slagged about that moustache?

Willie O’ Dea: (Laughs) Sometimes! Yeah.

Why not get rid of it?

Because I’ve gotten attached to it! Besides, if I were to remove it nobody might recognise me! At least it makes me instantly recognisable.

Is your favourite Beatles song I Am The Walrus?

I always loved the Beatles. But I don’t know that track. If I did, maybe it would be my favourite song!

OK, while we’re talking about weird little creatures – Jim Kemmy once said you’re “mighty mouse” in your constituency but “Mickey Mouse” in Leinster House.

He did! And that was the type of vulgar political abuse we all use. I’ve said some harsh things about Jim. But now that he’s deceased I won’t repeat them. Yet we certainly had robust political debates when we both represented Limerick. People used to say that when Kemmy and I clashed, copies of the Limerick paper, the Weekly Echo – with reports on our battles – were worth a tenner an edition! The usual price was 20p!

You once said that Jim Bruton and Nora Owen were both “immaturing with age”? Would you say the same thing about Michael Noonan?

I don’t know if he’s “immaturing with age.” The jury is still out on Michael Noonan. But I do think some of our people over-estimated Noonan. He conveys an air of menace and has succeeded in intimidating some people.

In Fianna Fail?

People, generally. He comes across as a person that, if you criticise him, he’ll come back with an instant riposte that will slice you in two.

Before Noonan became party leader of Fine Gael, Gerry Stembridge, on The Late, Late Show, joked that he seemed like the kind of Limerick lad who’d “head-butt” you if you criticised him!

He’s managed to successfully create that impression. But it’s exaggerated. People became fed up with John Bruton yet that took a few years. They’ll get tired of Michael Noonan in a much shorter time. I don’t think Michael Noonan is a leader. There was the idea that John Bruton was a decent guy. At least, he conveyed that image. And politics is all about image. Michael Noonan does not convey that image. That doesn’t mean he’s not a decent person. But he does convey a head-butting image.

If Noonan is head-butting anyone in terms of the £50,000 “donation” given to Fine Gael after Esat got that second mobile licence, he’s obviously doing so behind the scenes. In public he’s basically eating humble pie.

Michael Noonan took the high moral ground and the high moral ground is a dangerous place! It’s full of cliffs. You can fall off very easily. But on this whole issue I am very surprised. In some respects. Usually when the State is selling property – a licence, a building, whatever – they open a ‘tender system.’ People bring their bids in sealed form. And invariably it’s the highest tender they sell to. In this case, unusually, it was the lowest tender!

Did Fianna Fail raise questions about that at the time?

We did. And I would query why the Labour Party didn’t.

Why do you think they didn’t?

That’s for them to answer. But when you see a company on the verge of examinership, by the admission of its own Chief Executive, and everything is about to go, depending on this one decision – and then the tenderers who are offering the lowest get the licence. And, suddenly, they’re all mega-millionaires. And a couple of weeks later, money is routed – via an offshore account – to the (political) party who made that decision, then questions do need to be answered about that. And the answers I’ve heard so far are just not good enough. Alan Dukes, for example, is taking the line that when he replaced Michael Lowry as Minister in that Department he examined all the files and everything was okay. (Laughs ironically) Nobody expects somebody to leave evidence against themselves in a file!

You need money to install mobile phones in school buses, maybe you should call on Fine Gael to contribute the money to you! Or ask Denis O’ Brien!

I’m already calling on them to do that! Maybe we could do a “special deal” on cut-price phones!

But, seriously, is there really a question that Fine Gael should keep the money?

There is. Fine Gael have already attempted to give back this money and, apparently, failed to do so. They must be the only organisation in the history of the State that tried to give away money! They mustn’t have tried very hard! But the whole issue really has been dealt with very unsatisfactorily by Fine Gael. And it’s a very bad start for Noonan.

“High moral ground” or not, many people would agree with Noonan’s claim that a “cap” should be put on donations to political parties. That such donations should be kept down to a few thousand pounds.

And I do. If you don’t have some system like that in place wealthy people can attach themselves to powerful people in parties and influence the outcome of the election. Nationally and in constituencies. There’s a lot of opposition to public funding of the political system. But I’m in a minority in Fianna Fail, who would agree with public funding. I know tax-payers will resent me saying that but if you want to deal comprehensively with this whole situation that is the way to do it.

Did anyone ever offer you a “brown envelope” or bribe?

Never a brown envelope. But once or twice I felt approaches were being made. I served on Limerick Corporation for a brief period and there were certain planning matters and approaches were being made. But I discouraged them. Yet some of the stuff being revealed in these tribunals is mind-boggling. Even so, the evidence is there and it all seems to have happened.

And “even so”, are you one of those Fianna Fail supporters who feels sorry for Charlie Haughey?

I was never a supporter of his. But on a personal level I do feel sorry for Haughey. It’s sad that all this should come out in his declining years. He did a lot of good. But we all assumed Charlie Haughey had been a very successful businessman. Property developer, speculator, whatever. And invested his money wisely.

Was that honestly a widespread belief in Fianna Fail?

It was. If anybody made the suggestion, when Haughey was Taoiseach, that he was “on the take” it would have been regarded as a joke.

Either that or Haughey – not to mention his hench-men – would come down on top of you!

There was that too! But the worst that was assumed - at the time – about Charlie Haughey is that he had some sort of “inside track” as regards land dealing. He knew where property was going to rise in value and bought it in advance. Which is a venial sin compared to what has come out now – that he was, virtually, a “kept man.”

Does that fact shock or disillusion you?

I was always disillusioned with Charlie Haughey’s leadership. But, yeah, that was a bad shock. I meet people, to this day, in my own constituency, who vehemently fought with me back in those days because I opposed Charlie Haughey. They were so loyal to Haughey that they saw him in the same tradition of DeValera, Lemass, Lynch. And one result of all this is that we’re never going to have that sort of loyalty to an individual leader again. Among our foot soldiers.

Let’s talk about your childhood in Limerick. As a Minister you’ve brought in measures to combat bullying in schools. So were you bullied?

No. I was a very aggressive. Attempts to bully me were strongly resisted!

So were you, in fact, Mighty Mouse? Bullied because you were small?

Yeah. On bo

th counts! But in National School things definitely were sorted out in the schoolyard. After hours. The big guys tried to bully the small guys and we fought back.

Small guys can become bullies, by way of compensation. Are you?

God, no. For one thing, there was nobody smaller for me to bully! In fact, my wife thinks I’m not tough enough to be in politics. That I should deal with people more harshly, who are not up to the job. In terms of dropping them from the organisation. I’m not as good at that as I’d like to be. I find it psychologically impossible to shaft people who are not doing their job. If I like them personally.

Where do you stand in relation to the various negative representations of Limerick? Be it Frank McCourt’s depiction of the city as an impoverished hellhole in the ’40s or more contemporary claims that it’s “stab city”?

I wasn’t around during the period Frank McCourt is writing about. But there are people who were. And they reject the idea that he is representing their reality. But McCourt was writing a semi-autobiographical book and his family was very poor. His father also was an alcoholic. So Frank McCourt’s experience might not have been the experience of every person who was poor. And the main criticism of McCourt is that he tries to present his own experience as the experience of everybody living on, or below, a certain poverty line at the time. At that level it’s probably not an accurate portrayal.

As for “Stab City” that’s an easy caricature for people in the media. It derives from a couple of gang-land killings in the early ’70s and the reputation stuck. Civic leaders have been boasting about their efforts to counteract that, but it’s very hard to counteract a national media image. Particularly when things recur, occasionally, to bring it all back again. And it has created a kind of defensiveness amongst people in Limerick, a certain inferiority complex. It’s so far removed from reality it’s almost laughable. But, still, intelligent, educated people coming to work in Dublin, from Limerick, are often hugely self conscious of this image of Limerick as “Stab city.”

And whatever about you own combat skills, you no doubt believe the “head-butter” Noonan is adding to that image of Limerick.

Yeah! He’s bringing down the image of our city!

In the early ’70s when you came to Dublin to study Law in UCD were you a post-hippie, drug-taking boho?

(laughs) I was a bohemian, yeah. Long hair, way out clothes, discos, parties, all that. And I was into rock music. Groups like the Beatles. We all were. Except for Adrian Hardiman and Michael McDowell! These days – though I hated it back then – I’m more into traditional music. Drug-taking? In my time at college everybody experimented to some extent. And I did take a few drags. A little cannabis. Nothing substantial. But it did nothing for me. I far preferred alcohol.

Did you drink much?

I drank more in college than I do now.

Was there a point you had to draw back, say, ‘this may effect my health’?

It wouldn’t have gone that far. But it did come to a point where I felt it might be affecting my work. Certain people have a greater capacity for alcohol than others. I find that if I drink a few pints two nights in a row I’m wrecked by day three!

You don’t have kids?

No. Though I’m married fifteen years.

Why no kids?

We just didn’t have any.

Do you regret that?

I do.

Does your wife?

She does.

Have you considered adoption?

No. For a long time we thought we were going to have kids and then it didn’t happen. So we didn’t even think of adopting. And now it’s so difficult to adopt because you’re waiting around for years.

So have you given up, will you not have kids?

It’s very possible, at this stage, that I won’t have kids. But I have got many nephews and nieces and they compensate for not having children, to a degree.

As a young man you were, as you say, studying law. How did that pave a path to politics?

My father was chairman of a local branch of Fianna Fail so that was my background. But when I was in UCD I did get interested in politics and a Circuit Court judge called Desmond Smith put together a team for Jack Lynch in ‘73. So I joined, to do policy documents and so on. Then campaigned locally, in Limerick, in ‘77 with Des O’ Malley. But in ‘81 when I was picked to stand first I was having a great life. Lecturing at U.L, lecturing in Company Law in UCD and doing Tax Consultancy. Several sources of income.

Then one day a couple of local Fianna Fail heads came to the house a few days after a General Election had been declared and – to my amazement – asked me to stand as a candidate with O’ Malley! Then I got the nomination even though I was pitted against people like Pat Cox. The voting went on for six hours and I was absolutely legless when the results came in. I’d been in the bar waiting for the counts! And I went out on that platform beside O’ Malley and Peader Clohessy and all I remember is swaying with the combination of the heat, the drink and the shock! People tell me that whatever I said was very amusing but coming off the platform I couldn’t remember a single word I said! I can’t to this day.

Would you share a political platform with Dessie O’ Malley or the PDs today?

I get on with them as individuals. But I wouldn’t share their ideology, which is very much to the right. I stood beside O’ Malley when he was in Fianna Fail though, basically, I think his instincts were always right-wing. As in, believing in privatisation and so on. You won’t see me moving over to the PD’s!

Why did Bertie pick you as a Junior Minister.

I was expecting to get back into Justice or an economic ministry. And Bertie said “we’re going to put you in education and have Michael Martin to head it up.” And he did say “I want you to take over the adult side of things because it is in absolute bits. I want you to restructure it, get it going, get people enthusiastic about it and I’ll support you at cabinet level, in terms of money.” And he did fulfil that pledge.

Was there ever a moment when you went back to Bertie and said “I know you promised to back me, but here’s the actual cost of doing so” and he said “Oh Christ!”

No. He is a firm believer in helping the disadvantaged. Every time we meet him as a group of junior ministers he’s always going on about disadvantage. Saying “we must make sure we get to the kids in the inner city. And the pensioners.” He has a genuine interest in such issues.

As in his seeming to warn the Abbey Theatre not to try push through its plans to move away from Dublin’s inner city.

I agree with him.

But the Abbey argument is that they can’t accommodate growing audiences, that the building itself is out-dated and even the stage needs massive refurbishment. Everything, in fact, has to be altered. And that could be best done by moving to a site on Dublin’s Charlotte Quay.

If they can go off and build a building on a new site surely they have the money to secure the present building and expand it. The Abbey is part of the city centre.

They say that refurbishment on the present site might mean closing down the Abbey for two years.

I don’t think they’ll have to close it down for two years. Leinster House got a total face-lift in three months. So I think the Abbey should stay where it is. Saying Dublin should move the Abbey Theatre is like saying London should move Buckingham Palace. It’s part of our history.

So can the government block, or impede, any effort to move the Abbey?

I think they can.

By withdrawing its annual grant?

Yeah. If the government doesn’t want it moved it won’t be moved. And I’m satisfied the government doesn’t want it moved.

Do you think McCreevy should be getting lashed by the EC in terms of his “over-spending” in the last Budget?

No. We’re the most successful economy in the world. And we’re the only ones being criticised. I find that mind-boggling. Look at the guy who’s doing the lashing. That Spanish guy. They ran a deficit last year about 40% above the Maastricht criteria. And some of the people who supported him, like the Italians, are failing to comply much more than us with other aspects of the Maastricht criteria. It is like being bullied in school. You pick on the small guy. And pick on the one economy in the European Community that everybody is probably jealous of. They had a go at Gordon Brown and he told them where to go.

Do you think we should tell the EC to go to hell. In diplomatic language?

In diplomatic language, we have! Charlie McCreevy has made that quite clear. They said we should take £400 million off expenditure but what do they want us to do? Close a few hospitals? Get rid of the School Building programme? They say “400 million” and we’re supposed to make the hard decisions. The opposition at the time – John Bruton and Alan Dukes – said “Europe are right” but nobody suggests what we should cut. But McCreevy said “no.” That services have already suffered and we’re not going to take the money back.

Did you recover from being “head-butted” by Bertie and Bobby Molloy after you told Limerick taxi drivers to “keep fighting”?

Totally! But what I was telling those taxi drivers was that I thought they had a good case. That I didn’t think deregulation was the answer. And that I didn’t think deregulation was needed in Limerick because there was no problem getting taxis. The main complaint of taxi drivers in Limerick, to me, over the years is that they have to put in such long hours to make a living. Because the Corporation have allowed so many people to get Hackney licences. And the Hackney’s were operating as taxis and still are. That’s not legal but it’s very hard to enforce the law. Either way, I always believed that the situation in Limerick was very different from what it was in Dublin and that – basically – is what I was saying that day. It’s still my view.

At the time you probably were seen as the hero of taxi drivers while Bobby Molloy became the devil.

There was a lot of animosity towards Bobby Molloy. But he was the guy who had to do this. It was a government decision. I don’t know whether Bobby Molloy proposed that to the government or whether the government proposed it and got him to implement it but he certainly was the focus of a lot of anger at the time.

Some of it directed at you, with your political opponents accusing you of simply playing to your own constituents.

Fine Gael were saying “this fella sneaked off and addressed couple of hundred of his own guys in a pub in Limerick.” But the point is that I had given an interview to the Limerick Leader – which is widely read in the mid-west – stating my views before this happened at all. I also spoke on local radio. And even if I hadn’t done those things I don’t know why, if you’re addressing a meeting of three hundred people in Limerick, you would ever expect what you’re going to say to remain private!

Another point is that you didn’t know your comments were being taped by RTE.

If I had known that what I was saying that day was being recorded, my message would have been the same. Yet it would have been delivered in a more moderate tone, obviously. Because there’s a difference between addressing a local group of people and telling the whole country. I wouldn’t have been as offensive to Bobby Molloy if I’d known he was going to be listening to what I said. That’s human nature.

It could also be seen as hypocritical.

No. As I say, the substance would have been the same but the tone would have been far different.

Did you get a nasty phone call from Bertie and Bobby that night telling you to shut up?

Various people spoke to me the following day. And we had a “full and frank exchange of views!” Did that make you feel that the “implications of collective responsibility” mean you aren’t allowed articulate what you, personally, feel about certain issues?

I was allowed to articulate what I feel on this issue. And I articulated it, subsequently. And during the motion of confidence in the Dail, I reiterated that this was my personal position. As I understand the doctrine of collective responsibility it means if you disagree with something your own government is doing, you are bound by the majority decision and go with it. It doesn’t mean you change your mind – or pretend to change your mind – from one day to the next.

Despite the element of Social Justice involved in your Adult Education brief, isn’t there also the government’s more basic desire to have a work force that draws on every age group?

Absolutely. It makes economic sense. Because we’re into the era where we have to keep upskilling, retraining, constantly. So we have to inculcate in the country the attitude that learning is going to be a lifelong thing. We’ve got to get them out of this idea that you finish your education, say, at university. That when you’ve done your MA you’re set for life. Those days are gone.

Your plans to have universities abolish fees for those who are unemployed and on social welfare and so on, must have met with resistance in, say, universities such as TCD, which currently admits a relatively measly number of mature students.

Trinity does, yes. But I think any inclination such universities may have had to resist up till now, will change. Dramatically. Because of demographic changes. The supply of young, potential graduates, is drying up. And the colleges are competing for funds, prestige, numbers, So they will have to look now at what’s left for them. And what’s left are young people from areas of social disadvantage – and the mature population, that has grown up, reared their families, women in the home etc. who haven’t ever gone to college.

This really is a radical and long overdue shake-up of the educational system at that level, isn’t it?

I would hope so, yes. My ambition would be that any mature person who wants to get a third level education can do so as quickly as possible. Without too much hassle. That, to me, would be the ultimate proof of a really radical overhaul of the educational system

Whatever about those that received a third level education there is a huge amount of Irish people who left the educational system without even finishing second level education. These, fundamentally, are the people you’re targeting.

Yes. One million people in this country don’t have their Leaving Certificate. And that does bring us back to the Social Justice element in all this. There were many young people who, for example, were forced to leave school to earn a living in order to support a big family. They have a right to return to the educational system, even at a late stage of their lives.

I know you don’t like the use of the word ‘illiteracy’ and took Emer O’ Kelly, of the Sunday Independent, to task for her claim that people who fall into the lowest level of education have difficulty “reading the destination on a bus.” You see all this as adding to the stigma attached to people who are illiterate.

What Emer O’ Kelly said is very insulting. One of our problems always has been to get people to come to literacy courses. When I took over there was £5,000 per annum going to literacy classes. But they were being held in the most appalling conditions. Two hours in a cold hall on a Thursday night. And if you’d to cycle twenty miles it was “take it or leave it.” And mostly the people giving classes were volunteers. Now we’ve £15,000 a year going through, back-up material, salubrious surroundings, trained people. Even so, when you see in a national newspaper, the sort of general slander Emer O’ Kelly comes out with, that definitely doesn’t help break down the stigma that is still attached to this whole area. In fact, comments about “people who need this tuition can’t read what’s on the front of a bus” makes it even harder to attract people in. People in her position should be more sensitive.

You also initiated a programme on local radio called Literacy Over The Airwaves whereby people who are sensitive about their literacy skills can educate themselves in the comfort of their own homes.

Absolutely. They just had to ring a contact number. And we supplied a tutor at the other end of the phone. And supplied materials. There was an enormous take-up on that. So much so we’re going national now. On RTE Radio One.

Not in the middle of the night like those Open University programmes on the BBC, one hopes!

Jesus, no! They wanted to shunt us off to that slot and there was resistance but we’ve negotiated that with everyone from the head guy down.

The “head guy” is a woman, Willie! Helen Shaw! Did you negotiate with her?

Yeah! We’ve had “full and frank exchanges” with Helen Shaw! And her name was at the end of the letter. Though I don’t know if she takes every decision.

If there was resistance was that simply Shaw realising the commercial reality of radio is that she can use earlier time slots better, sell them to advertisers and so on?

She didn’t tell me what the reasons were. But we had to fight to get a good slot. And we got a good slot. But the point is that the programme we ran on RTE television – Read Right Now – had a mass audience. About 160,000 every week. And we’re negotiating a second series with RTE. That, too, is a commercial reality. RTE can sell ads in that context too. On television or radio. But, finally, for the radio programme we got the slot of 11.10pm on Monday and a repeat at 5am on Tuesday. That was our compromise.

Someone recently said Ireland has become so youth-oriented that if you’re not young you’re basically told to “go off and die somewhere, don’t embarrass us.” That there is a savagery, in this sense, to the New Ireland.

There is that savagery. In fact, I dread the thought of what I’m going to do when I retire. Dread the prospect of having nothing to do. Wasn’t it Bernard Shaw who said “permanent retirement” is a “good working definition of hell.” It is. Because your self-image and sense of self-worth does often depend on being involved in some form of work. Or education. So when we’re talking about Adult Education, in the broadest sense, we’re talking about the quality of peoples’ lives. We want to give people the opportunity to do something.

Some would say Bertie Ahern might benefit from a re-education programme. Phoenix magazine for one. They always slag his Dublin accent and depict him – quite insensitively to Dublin northsiders! – as “De Northside Taoiseach” who probably could benefit from literacy classes!

They do, yeah! But I think there is a certain calculation in the way Bertie speaks. He has an empathy with ordinary people so I think if he changed his accent he’d go backwards! In terms of his popularity. He’s a Dublin man. He’s identified as such. And there’s a huge vote in Dublin. People who vote for him probably say “what you see is what you get.”

What about the notion that Fianna Fail will be knocked out of power by Noonan and co?

I don’t think Michael Noonan will appeal outside of Limerick. He’ll be popular in Limerick because, naturally, people in Limerick would like to see a Taoiseach in the city. But I don’t think he has appeal outside of Limerick. So Fine Gael won’t knock us out of government.

Will the next General Election be sometime early next year – as Bertie is saying – or sooner?

Only if something very dramatic emerges. And I really can’t see that happening. I honestly believe we’re here for the long haul.