Special Envoy ready-up prompts expressions of a different kind

It’s ironic really that Katherine Zappone’s surreptitious if ill-fated appointment as a special envoy for freedom of expression should provoke such an outpouring of opposition – because that sort of suggests we didn’t really need an advocate to help us freely express ourselves in the first place.

Timing, as they say, is everything and if you’re trying to sneak something from the ‘in’ tray to the ‘out’ tray with minimal fuss, don’t do it during the Dáil summer break when political correspondents are at a loose end, waiting to pick up the kids from the Cúl Camp.

Normally, they – like the politicians – would be off in search of foreign sunshine and craft beer by now, but they’re as grounded as flights out of Galway Airport. Thus, they’re desperate for a story.

And by any yardstick, this is indeed a desperate story – a made-up job for a former Minister whose new life has taken her to New York, where the post of special envoy would open more doors than Carlton the doorman.

The actual cost of this was small beer in the scheme of things – an unfortunate analogy perhaps, given that the former Minister might have run out that kind of tab at the Merrion Hotel outdoor party for fifty of her closest besties.

But the fact that the salary was a veritable stipend (by political standards) for a part-time position is neither here nor there; this was about a calling card that got you past the braided ropes.

I remember many years ago talking to Donie Cassidy – possibly before he even took up golf – who was a Senator for years before he became a TD.

He had his profession on his passport and the mere mention of the word Senator moved him swiftly through immigration queues on his frequent visits to the US.

The Americans’ idea of a Senator is of course very different to ours, but when Donie became a TD, he thought that this level of service and attention would sky-rocket in line with his elevation.

Of course it didn’t, because to the Yanks, a Deputy is a person filling in for someone else – and a public representative several rungs below a Senator.

In the same way, an Irish envoy in New York would be on the guest list for every political bun fight, because New Yorkers wouldn’t know that this was a quasi-job worth a mere €15k a year.

Read Dave O’Connell’s column in full, in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie