SHORTLY BEFORE 4.30pm on 2 February, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore was putting a question to Taoiseach Brian Cowen during Leaders' Questions, when Fine Gael's newest recruit walked in the door of the Dáil chamber.

Clutching a bundle of documents with both arms, Deputy George Lee walked slowly around the periphery of the chamber. He scanned the room before he stood at the back, adrift from all the other TDs.

He had a bemused look on his face. It was clear that he was not impressed by what he was witnessing. The quizzical look was noted in the press gallery. The body language was clear: this man was not comfortable in the surroundings of Dáil Eireann.

Less than a week later, he would resign sensationally from politics. It came as a shock that he was entering public life nine months ago. His exit was equally shocking.

During an interview after his resignation, RTÉ's Sean O'Rourke would ask him, "Was this a question of George Lee joining Fine Gael or Fine Gael joining George Lee?"

In reality, Lee had joined neither Fine Gael nor the Dáil. He was an outsider, the kid with a sense of entitlement who looked down on everyone else in the playground.

Political masterstroke

THIS time last year, Labour senator Alex White was like the famous racehorse Devon Loch in the 1956 Aintree Grand National. The winning post was in sight – a by-election where he was the only declared candidate in the race to take the late Seamus Brennan's Dáil seat.

Devon Loch was famously overtaken and beaten. White's demise was similar. He was beaten by Fine Gael's political masterstroke – wooing RTÉ's economics editor in the midst of the state's worst ever economic recession.

Fine Gael's seasoned strategist Frank Flannery had quietly approached Lee. The man who fronted a documentary titled We Blew The Boom was being offered the chance to enter the Dáil as a political messiah to put things right.

Even though Flannery's approach to Lee was top secret, there were rumours in political journalism circles that Lee was about to make the jump. In late February, Phoenix magazine ran a story with the headline: 'George Lee for FG in Dublin South?'

Some weeks before he publicly declared his resignation from RTÉ, a journalist from the Sunday Tribune rang Lee to ask him about the talk of his departure for politics. Lee took the unusual step of getting an RTÉ press officer to return the call to the journalist and deny the rumours on his behalf.

Weeks later, on Friday 1 May, the Sunday Tribune received a tip-off that a figure in Fine Gael's headquarters in Mount Street had sent a text message to a local councillor in the midlands revealing the news that Lee had been successfully wooed.

Another Fine Gael source claimed that Lee was the likely candidate, but the party denied it. Lee did not return calls on either 1 May 2 or May and the RTÉ press office vehemently denied he was about to depart for politics when asked on Saturday 2 May.

The rumours about Lee continued over the weekend. He would later explain that the reason he did not return any calls was because he had gone away for a few days to think about his life-changing decision.

On Tuesday 5 May at 12.30pm Lee walked into the office of Ed Mulhall, the managing director of RTÉ News. He had earlier rung his boss to seek a face-to-face meeting. The Irish Times had reported that morning that Lee was about to be unveiled as Fine Gael's new signing.

It was reported that Mulhall was angry with Lee for the manner in which he had handled his departure. Lee was one of RTÉ's stars and there is no denying his passionate analysis struck a chord with viewers.

But Lee was about to leave his comfort zone. Minutes after departing Mulhall's office, he walked to the News at One studio where he came across as petulant and overly-defensive during a grilling from O'Rourke.

Lee got quite irate when O'Rourke put it to him that RTÉ was obliged under law to be objective and he might have had an obligation to confide in his employers that he was in talks with Fine Gael.

"I'm perfectly entitled to consider my future. I'm perfectly entitled in my own mind to make that decision without you or anybody else in RTÉ deciding that you must say what I will do," he said. "I don't need you or anybody else in RTÉ to tell me what my future is."

Further questions about the nature of his departure were raised on 10 May when the Sunday Tribune revealed that Lee had posed for election poster photographs a full five days before informing RTÉ he was to quit the station.

The photo shoot took place on Thursday 30 April when the RTÉ press office was stating categorically that he was not standing for Fine Gael.

The day after the shoot, Lee was a panel guest on Pat Kenny's Radio 1 show where he complained about government "incompetence" during an "atrocious" Lisbon referendum campaign.

Lee's successful by-election was more of a love-in than a political campaign. To the minds of middle-class women in Dublin South, Lee was a mix of Brad Pitt and Warren Buffet.

Anyone in the RDS count centre on 6 June knew the by-election result as soon as the ballot boxes were opened. More than 50% of voters or 27,000 people had put a number one beside Lee's name.

He was elected to the Dáil on the first count. This feat had not been achieved in a by-election since Taoiseach Brian Cowen secured a seat in Laois-Offaly in 1984.

Lee's first day in the Dáil on 9 June was one of much fanfare. TDs clapped as the winner of the Dublin Central by-election Maureen O'Sullivan entered the chamber. Minutes later Fine Gael TDs cheered when Lee made his entrance.

Comments made in what was a lacklustre maiden speech the following day ring hollow this weekend. "Given the outcome of the by-election, there is no going back now," he said.

A change in mood

The reception Lee received from his Fine Gael colleagues on his first day in the Dáil was mirrored in Glenties, Co Donegal on 21 July when Lee walked into the hall for a debate with the finance minister Brian Lenihan at the MacGill summer school.

But one observer noted last week, "There was a notable change in the mood of the audience before and after Lee spoke."

Although it is subjective, a lot of observers felt that Lee was outshone by Lenihan in the debate. Fine Gael insiders were privately worried about Lee's performance on the night. While he was good at soundbites and one-liners, his mastery of detail left a lot to be desired. It was the first time that people began to wonder if he was the addition to Fine Gael, and the Dáil, that they had been promised.

After the summer recess, Lee's star began to fall. Like numerous by-election winners over the years, he seemed to be struggling to find his feet in his new environment.

A Sunday Tribune analysis of the Dáil record found that Lee spoke for a mere two hours in the Dáil chamber during his eight-month tenure in political life.

Lee spoke on 21 out of the 62 days that the Dáil sat while he was a Fine Gael TD. He only spoke on one day in September and one day in January out of a total of 11 sitting days in those two months.

Rookie TDs find it difficult to understand Dáil procedure and Lee was no different. His lodging of a parliamentary question enquiring about the potential cost savings from reducing maternity leave in the public sector set off alarm bells in Fine Gael minds.

The question was lodged with the Department of Finance, but it was later withdrawn before it was due to be published in the daily list of parliamentary questions.

Last week, Lee submitted a question to Lenihan asking how one of his constituents might renew their wine licence. Lenihan duly replied that it was the Revenue Commissioners and not his department that renew such licences.

Lee also made a mistake in contravening Fine Gael budgetary policy with his claim that proposed €4bn cuts in public spending were wrong. It was obvious the new TD wasn't fitting in.

Payback time

TDs from across the political spectrum typically congregate around the TVs in the Dáil Members' bar on Tuesday and Wednesday nights – when the Dáil sits late – to watch the RTÉ Nine News.

There is one particular TV in the bar, where the Fianna Fáil TDs tend to gather to get the headlines. This has been a less than pleasant experience for government TDs throughout the recession.

Much of the earlier part of the recession involved RTÉ's economics editor berating them. So it was payback time one evening before Christmas when Lee stood alongside the Fianna Fáil TDs to watch the news.

Lee's former colleague David Murphy gave a report of some positive economic indicator or other as Fine Gael's newest TD looked on.

Murphy is a journalistic professional beyond reproach, and certainly was not giving a 'pro-government line'. He was simply reporting an economic indicator that offered hope to the economy and the government TDs were eager to latch onto any glimmer of hope.

Lee looked less than impressed at his former colleague's report and this did not go unnoticed by Fianna Fáil backbencher Timmy Dooley, who looked at the TV and then looked back at Lee before he quipped, "It's great to have one of our own inside."

Dooley knew well that Murphy has no political sympathies one way or another, but could not resist teasing Lee, who did not get the joke at all.

One senior Fianna Fáil TD remarked, "People like Dooley are always hopping balls off the Fine Gael and Labour lads. And most of them are well able to slag back. But George Lee didn't seem to have the same sense of humour.

"He would just grimace when we shouted across the chamber at him. He just didn't seem cut out for the day-to-day banter."

It is a minor issue whether Lee was cut out for day-to-day banter. But it appears he was not cut out for day-to-day politics.

He had not settled into the role and he alluded to his unhappiness in two separate RTÉ interviews with Miriam O'Callaghan and Gavin Jennings over Christmas. Still, last Monday's announcement came as bombshell to everyone.

The statement he issued to the media shortly before lunchtime on Monday said: "I have done my best to play a positive role in contributing to the national debate and to efforts to find a solution for many of the country's economic problems.

"The reality, however, is that despite my best efforts, I have had virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael's economic policies at this most critical time. The role I have been playing within the party has been very limited and I have found this to be personally unfulfilling."

Economic role

So what was Lee's role? Fine Gaelers were eager to point out he was appointed chairman of the party's new economic forum.

But Lee complained he was appointed to that role "without any consultation" and instead he "wanted to play a part in terms of economic policy formation".

While it is unclear if Lee was consulted or not about heading up the body, it is clear he did not even convene the forum once. He chaired an economic roadshow but was not happy to fill the role of "crowd puller".

Former colleagues Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney both claim they asked Lee for input and ideas, but he did not come forward with any.

A Fine Gael senator remarked this weekend, "George rarely even spoke at the weekly parliamentary party, which is an opportunity for all TDs and senators to bring forward policy ideas. That would have been the perfect forum for him to have frank discussions about his policy ideas, but he didn't even suggest any."

Lee engaged in wall-to-wall media interviews all day last Monday. At no point throughout the day did Lee reveal the economic plan he argues nobody in Fine Gael would listen to.

The following day, Kenny and Richard Bruton gave interviews and on Wednesday Brian Hayes launched a scathing attack on the man for whom he had acted as election agent nine months ago.

Hayes suggested that Lee may have left politics because he was after taking a reduction in his income by leaving the Dáil to join RTE.

This has been dismissed as "Fine Gael spin" in some quarters, but it is interesting that a number of Labour TDs were openly backing up Hayes' argument around the corridors of Leinster House.

It could be said this was evidence of members of the "Leinster House Club" closing ranks. Lee denied the claims and said if he wanted money he would have stayed in politics, where expenses are unvouched, pensions are lucrative, and ministerial salaries are handsome.

The reasons for his departure are almost irrelevant now. The reality is that he is gone. The fall-out from his departure, however, is far from over.