It 'lifted a weight from her shoulders', but brought renewed tension to the PDs
WHITE linen and candlelit tables awaited the party of guests arriving at Cookes restaurant in Dublin city centre last Thursday evening. The first-floor private dining room had been booked late in the day. Still, the restaurant staff coped admirably in catering for their high-profile and powerful diners.

Many of those sitting down to enjoy chef John Cooke's selfstyled blend of Mediterranean and Californian cuisine had other plans for the evening. But Mary Harney had achieved a rarity in Irish political life . . . she had kept a secret. Few had time to plan for her big announcement. Around 60 of her colleagues and friends listened as she said a few words of thanks for their long-time support. The heirs apparent, Michael McDowell, Liz O'Donnell and Tom Parlon, all joined in the applause.

There was no talk between the potential contenders about the nascent contest. But as the table candles threw shadows across the dining room, Harney and McDowell could be seen in silhouette deep in conversation.

The atmosphere was good.

"Let's just say nobody was smashing glasses over heads, " joked one person who was there.

The party went on into the early hours, but for many in Cooke's there was uncertainty about whether they were attending a wake or a celebration.

Unsettling delays 2006 began with considerable uncertainty within the ranks of the Progressive Democrats.

In private conversations with close party colleagues, Mary Harney had been talking about stepping down as party leader.

Some senior members had even been led to expect a retirement announcement shortly after the party's 20th anniversary celebrations in December 2005.

When that date passed, the news was expected at the PD national conference last April.

Michael McDowell was not alone in expecting Harney to make known publicly what she had been suggesting in private for some time. The delays were unsettling and were hampering general election planning.

The simmering tensions finally boiled over in late June when, after being directly asked about her plans, Harney declared her intention to remain as leader. McDowell felt cheated. Confident of victory in any contest, he believed the leadership had been dangled in front of him. "Michael was led up the garden path, " one PD figure said.

The justice minister talked about leaving politics. Harney was furious with his response. Hard words were exchanged over a number of days.

The party trustees warned of the damage being done. A peace of sorts was eventually restored with Harney and McDowell . . . who had hardly been talking over the previous few weeks . . . enjoying lunch at the Unicorn restaurant in Dublin.

But the reality was very different. Over the summer the leadership issue continued to simmer. Many leading figures were hardly on speaking terms.

"The leadership issue was not put to bed. There was still a lot of rancour, " Paul Mackay, a party trustee, admitted this weekend.

Harney knew she had made the wrong decision. She had been talked into changing her mind by several close colleagues, including Liz O'Donnell and Senator John Minihan, many of whom could not countenance the idea of Michael McDowell as PD leader.

Harney was uncertain about her next move when she left on 11 August for holidays in Italy with her husband Brian Geoghegan. The previous few months had been bruising. Having contested two general elections as PD leader, she was not convinced about her hunger for another campaign.

Harney was hardly a week into her summer break . . . away from the "hothouse of Leinster House, " as she put it . . . when she decided it was time to bring her 13-year stewardship of the PDs to an end. "Now is the right time for the party to elect a new leader. It is also the right time for me to vacate that position, " she admitted.

Back in Dublin, Harney's closest adviser, Katherine Bulbulia, was asked to ensure that the 12 other members of the PD parliamentary party were available to attend a meeting on Thursday 7 September. Only Tom Morrissey, who was travelling, was unavailable. Nobody was given any indication of the news that their leader, who returned from Italy earlier that week, was about to announce.

Before talking with her party colleagues, Harney broke the news to the taoiseach ahead of the cabinet meeting last Wednesday. The two leaders had developed an excellent working relationship over the past nine years. Ahern asked if she was sure it was the correct move. But the decision had already been made. Ahern wished his coalition partner well.

'Not for turning' Unlike in June, there were no discussions this time about the correctness of her decision. Her mind was set. "The lady was not for turning, " one party colleague admitted. She told Bulbulia on Wednesday evening.

The chairman of the PD parliamentary party John Dardis was informed only at lunchtime on Thursday. He later said the news came to him as a "total surprise."

Those present at the PD parliamentary party on Thursday afternoon said that, while it was "highly emotional" and "very moving, " it was also extremely businesslike. After Harney made her shock announcement, Dardis made it clear that, while it was natural in the circumstances to want to pay tribute to their departing leader, this was not the time to do it and that there was business to attend to. As the meeting closed, Bulbulia spoke briefly to say that she wanted to put it on the record that it had been a pleasure to work with the tanaiste.

Not everybody in the PDs is completely convinced by Harney's declaration that she made the decision to quit a week into her holiday in Italy and was not pressurised into doing so.

"McDowell was not letting up and his people were not letting up, " one source said.

Grassroots muttering about Harney's leadership had continued throughout the summer, and some believe that what really happened is that this discontent was conveyed to Harney, who then decided to do what she had really wanted to do last June and walk away from the leadership. However, most party figures accept that the decision was entirely her own.

Later on Thursday, a media notification about an "important announcement about the future of the party" was sent out by the PD press office. When contacted, Harney's press adviser, Mark Costigan, would neither "confirm nor deny" that his boss was stepping down.

But political insiders were already sending and receiving text messages. "She's gone as party leader. Wants to stay in health, " a message from a Fianna Fail figure stated.

As she sat at the top table in the Wellington Suite in the Merrion Hotel, Harney looked relaxed. There were plenty of smiles for the photographers.

"You could see there was something about her. She looked so well and very radiant. A weight had been lifted off her shoulders, " one parliamentary party member said.

There was little visible emotion. Liz O'Donnell watched, stony-faced. Michael McDowell rolled his eyes when a question was asked about leadership tensions in the party. Harney talked about the qualities needed to do the job of party leader . . . someone who was articulate, tough and well-known to the electorate.

This weekend it seems the Progressive Democrats have decided that Michael McDowell best matches the criteria set down by Harney. His campaign received a significant boost on Friday morning with declarations of support from several members of the PD parliamentary party. Limerick East TD Tim O'Malley said the Dublin South East politician was "by some distance the outstanding candidate."

O'Malley had been widely seen as being in the middle ground, someone whose vote was up for grabs. Not only that, but relations with McDowell were believed to have been extremely poor after the earlier leadership stand-off, with rumours that the two men had a furious row and were not speaking for a time. The Limerick man's early and enthusiastic support for McDowell was the death knell for the ambitions of Tom Parlon and Liz O'Donnell.

"The minute Tim O'Malley came out, that was the end of it.

The others then followed with all of them playing for jobs, " one senior PD admitted.

The high-profile role of the party's senators, including Tom Morrissey, Kate Walsh and Michael Brennan, all of whom were nominated by the taoiseach, was also noted.

"It's quite ironic that it was the senators, who were not elected, who were deciding the fate of the PD leadership, " one source noted caustically, before asking how many of them would be around after the next general election.

There was also some irritation in sections of the party at the decision of former minister Bobby Molloy publicly to back McDowell at lunchtime on Friday. Some felt he should have waited to see if other candidates were going to declare.

No time for wallowing However, others were grateful for Molloy's experience. He had been pivotal in holding the PDs together in the row-filled times that followed Harney's succession of Des O'Malley in 1993.

The party lost two TDs, Pat Cox and Martin Cullen, in the aftermath of Harney's election. Molloy pointed out to the current members of the parliamentary party that there should be no wallowing over the end of the Harney era and it was time to move on and embrace a new era for the party.

With support for McDowell gathering apace, others, including the party's founder, Des O'Malley, spoke of the benefit of avoiding a contest so close to the general election. The bookmakers, who had initially displayed their lack of political experience, quickly changed their odds.

Whereas on Thursday evening, they had Liz O'Donnell as favourite, by Friday lunchtime they had suspended taking bets on a McDowell victory.

The three-tier voting system for electing a new PD leader offered Tom Parlon some hope, given the high number of voting members in his constituency of Laois-Offaly. But the former IFA leader seemed to hint at his openness to doing a deal when he also spoke of the benefits of avoiding a leadership contest. A suggestion from Senator Tom Morrissey, a strong McDowell supporter, that Parlon would make an excellent party president hinted at a backroom deal.

There were contacts between representatives of the various individuals still eyeing the top job. By yesterday morning, one opponent of McDowell's leadership ambitions declared the contest over. "It's about gamesmanship now but I think Liz and Tom should just announce they won't be standing, " he said.

Nominations formally close at noon tomorrow. The PD national executive will meet at the party head office at South Frederick Street in Dublin later tomorrow evening, bizarrely to approve the formalities for the election itself, including giving their approval to the closing date for nomination.

Once this legal technicality is out of the way, Michael McDowell is expected to be formally declared PD leader. A meeting with the taoiseach is likely to take place on Tuesday with Ahern seeking assurances about the PDs' continued support for the coalition arrangement.

But with O'Donnell and Parlon still to announce formally that they will not be seeking the top post, text messages between party members were continuing to circulate this weekend.

Last night one PD insider wrote, "The parliamentary party want a consensus and they've found it . . . a leader they all hate!"