Tonight Ireland is a happy country, as we celebrate the end of the PDs, a nasty little political party, which has imploded.Good bye - I say - and good riddens!
After they lost six of their previously eight deputies in the 2007 general election, the Parasitic Demagogues (PDs), until then the junior partner in the government coalition led by Fianna Fáil, were demoted to infant partner. (Their previous position as the juniors was taken by the equally power-hungry Green Party.)
Among the 75% casualties were their then leader, the Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell (left), as well as deputy leader Liz O'Donnell and party president Tom Parlin.The latter, a Minister of State and a corrupt weasel of amazingly few morals, found quickly a new perk as the head of the construction industry federation. He feels quite at home there now, as no-one in Ireland knows corruption better than the builders and property developers.
But greedy and power-hungry as they were, the PDs still stayed in government, despite being almost wiped out by the electorate. If there ever was a case in Irish politics where the expressed will of the voters was completely ignored and contradicted, it was to keep the damaged remnants of the PDs in government last year.
With a grand total of two Senators (kindly appointed by Bertie) and two TDs, one of which - the infamous Mary Harney (right) - even retained her position as Minister for Health (with an annual budget of more than € 16 billion), the PDs became the living dead of Leinster House.It took more than a year before they could not stand the stench or their own wrotten existence any longer. Today they finally decided to obey the will of the Irish voters and disbanded what was left of the party.
But it was not an easy death. In April they even went through the charade of electing a new leader, as if there was anything left to lead. A previously unknown Galway man named Ciaran Cannon - one of the two appointed Senators - was chosen as the sacrificial lamb, as even Mary Harney could see no future for the PDs and refused to lead them into any more disasters.
Now it's all over - thank God! This afternoon the last surviving members of the PDs meet for a wake in Mullingar and voted to finally disband their party. Ciaran Cannon will have to live with the dubious stain of having been their last 'leader', while no-one even mentions the pompous and self-important Michael McDowell any longer.
The party, founded by the former Fianna Fáil TD and minister Des O'Malley in 1985 as the Progressive Democrats, had originally offered a new alternative in Irish politics. But after the founder resigned in 1993 and turned the party over to Mary Harney, things began to go rapidly downhill. Under the 13 years of her leadership the PDs became the Parasitic Demagogues.
It is however ironic that the very man who urged Des O'Malley in 1985 to establish a new party would become its undertaker. This man was no other than Michael McDowell, in 1985 a young Fine Gael activist, and from 2006 to 2007 the hapless leader of the corrupted PDs.
Neither he nor Des O'Malley were in Mullingar for the party's funeral. These days they have better things to do.
However, the decommisioning process of the PDs is not quite complete yet. Though the party is now officially disbanded, they still have a hidden stash of power in the Cabinet, known as Mary Harney. She is now trying to masquerade as an 'independent', but no-one believes her anyway.
She sees herself as the first one-person party in Irish history and is determined to stay in power as long as it is possible. Only with her decommissioning the disbandment of the PDs will truly be finished, and I hope she will be decommissioned soon.
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