Answers were, as they say in diplomatic circles, “not forthcoming.” This is because the entire Irish civil service operates on a single, inviolable principle: Never be the smart fellow holding the parcel when the public relations bomb goes off.

Eventually, someone fed Fianna Fáil’s Joe Jacob, the Minister of State with responsibility for Nuclear stuff, on to the Marian Finucane Show, an RTE radio program where the genteel Marian would peel the skin from politicians with the tender concern of a chef preparing an eel. (Ireland doesn’t have a nuclear power plant or nuclear energy, so no one was quite sure who would be in charge if a nuclear disaster happened). Turns out the Fianna Fáil TD from Wicklow was the man.

Jacob began well enough, praising the Emergency Plan in the kind of language that would make a parliament sub-committee weep with joy, all about “mechanisms” and “coordination” and other words that mean “a large committee will be formed to draft a memo about forming a task force.”

But Marian, a woman who could find a flaw in the Sermon on the Mount, began to probe. What about a chemical attack? What happens? A biological incident? What would we do NOW? A nuclear incident in the UK? It was excruciating. Anyone listening would have felt almost sorry for Joe Jacob. Almost.

Poor Joe had no specifics. He had only the politician’s rosary: “Mechanisms are in place.” “A public awareness campaign would be triggered.” To which Finucane, with the serenity of a sniper, replied: “Does the public not need to be aware of what to do before an attack happens?” It was at this point a nation paused, put down its cup of tea, and said, “She’s got him.”

Sensing the tide was against him, Jacob performed a tactical pivot worthy of a Soviet ballet dancer, swinging the conversation to the nuclear threat from Sellafield. He urged calm, warning against alarmistic vibrations, which I believe is a condition suffered by badly-tuned guitars and people who play them.

Marian, perhaps taking pity on the hapless Joe, followed him into this fresh hell. “If I heard… that something had crashed into Sellafield… what would we do now?”

What followed was a masterpiece of attempted failed political evasion, a symphony of nothingness. Joe referenced “the plan,” the “new plan,” the “updated plan,” the “state-of-the-art plan,” and finally the “draft plan” to be issued “in weeks.” He might as well have been reciting the ingredients from a shampoo bottle. “Yeah, but what would we do now?” Marian asked, a mantra that was becoming the national prayer.

Undaunted, Jacob produced the holy relic of his nuclear ministry: The Fact Sheet. It would, he promised, be distributed to every home in Ireland. It would contain everything. What to do, where to go, how to live. It was like the Ten Commandments, but with more talk of iodine and shelters. And yet, when asked by Finucane what to do now, at this very moment, in the event the nuclear power plant at Sellafield had suddenly turned into a glowing nuclear puddle, Jacob replied with the kind of bureaucratic paradox that could only come from a man who’s forgotten both the question and the country he’s speaking to: “We would tell people.”

Pressed, again, heroically, by Finucane (“Tell them what?!”), Jacob declared, “Sheltering! We would shelter!” and triumphantly added, “There are iodine tablets!” To which the nation collectively wondered whether he meant we have them or we will one day have them, hypothetically, upon the issuance of the blessed fact sheet.

Naturally, the government had to send in the clean-up crew. Enter Micheál Martin (current prime minister), then Minister for Health at the time, whose solemn, measured tones could convince you that a plague of locusts was part of a sensible agricultural policy. He assured the nation that iodine tablets were stocked in all health board areas. This was a lie. Many boards had none. Many had tablets so old they’d expired around the time Ulysses was published. The civil service had, once again, handed its minister a shovel and pointed him at a minefield.

Opposition TDs screamed for Joe Jacobs’ head. Political Wags renamed him the “Minister for Disaster.” But in the end, the old tribal machinery ground on. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who had never heard of Joe Jacob up till now, with a straight face, declared that Joe Jacob knew “more about Sellafield and nuclear than anybody else in Government. which, depending on the yardstick, may not have been much of a commendation.

The iodine tablets eventually arrived, five months late. By the time they expired, the Department of Health had decided the whole thing was pointless anyway. A fitting epitaph for a lot of government initiatives implemented by civil servants without the requisite skill sets. Like a broken cannon, elements of the civil service are like a broken cannon; they don’t work, and you can’t fire them.

The political lesson is obvious. Never go on the radio or do any media without your facts. And if you must, for God’s sake, don’t talk about a fact sheet you haven’t read. It makes you look not just incompetent, but like a taunting, bureaucratic goblin. And the public hates taunting, bureaucratic goblins almost as much as they fear nuclear fallout.

Bonus audio of the encounter.

The council meeting began innocently enough. Wexford County Council, that august body of democrats who usually debate the vital issues of pothole repair and the correct level of pathos for a new monument to a dead poet. But today, the agenda was munitions. It seems the Irish Defence Forces, a group of soldiers so underfunded they use hurleys and hockey sticks for rifle practice, asked the Port of New Ross if they could bring in “certain specified classes of explosive materials.” Which is bureaucratese for “stuff that goes boom, but politely.” So the county, in its infinite wisdom, drafted the Explosives By-Laws 2025 — a title so dry it could spontaneously combust.

Director of Services Eamonn Hore assured everyone that such by-laws were standard procedure. Galway, Waterford, Foynes — all the cool ports are doing it. He also threw in the classic bromide for any failing enterprise: “It would bring additional business. “It’ll bring business to a port that’s struggled,” Hore said. Translation: if we can’t get container ships, we’ll settle for grenades. More cruel planning professionals might observe that blowing up New Ross and rebuilding it might actually improve the town.

Cue the councillors, taking turns at the microphone like bad poets at an open mic session. Fianna Fáil Cllr John Fleming, a local, was fully in favour. “The port needs every bit of help it can get,” looking forward to the potentially explosive “revitalisation”

Cllr Fleming, a New Ross native, was fully in favour. “The port needs every bit of help it can get,” he said, proving that nothing says “revitalisation” like a potential explosion of businesses.

Enter former Sinn Féin, now Independent Cllr John Dwyer, carrying enough doom to fuel a Sinn Féin fundraiser and the kind of geopolitical analysis usually found in a pub at 2 a.m. “The only industries New Ross has ever been given are dirty ones,” he declared, “fertiliser, cement, coal, and now one that could kill people.” Then came the philosophical part from Cllr Dwyer, Irish foreign policy, EU battle groups, sons and daughters marching off to other people’s wars. It was all very noble until someone pointed out that this was mostly about storing bullets, not annexing Poland.

Chaos, that great and glorious feature of local democracy, then took over. One councillor demanded more facts, apparently unaware that the documents had been available for months. It’s a request directly from the Defence Forces and we have based our by-laws on those implemented by other local authorities,” replied Mr Hore. “It’s a stretch to say this will support foreign wars.” The problem with civil servants is that they're like munitions themselves sometimes. They won’t work, and you can’t fire them.

There was something fishy about Aontú Cllr Jim Codds’ analogy. He worried aloud: “Munitions means bullets — not guns for shooting rabbits.” A fair point, though, given the state of Ireland’s rabbit overpopulation, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Cllr Fleming interjected again with proud paternal flair: “I have two sons who would fight anybody.” As far as this publication is aware, none of his sons is in the Irish army, and there’s no army base in Cllr Flemming’s kitchen, and you’ve got the wonder is Cllr Flemming ok in himself.

Cllr Dwyer worried about a munitions warehouse “beside a halting site,” the council’s chief executive, Eddie Taaffe, assured him no such site existed — yet. But if it ever did, rest easy — the planning process and the Fire Service would sort it out. I know, right? A munitions warehouse besides a halting site has the makings of a Guy Ritchie movie. Nothing instils confidence quite like Irish local planning.

By this point, the room had all the calm of a pub fight five minutes before closing. One of the younger councillors, Fine Gaels Darragh McDonald, tried to interject a rare thing in Irish Politics, a bit of common sense. He said he’d “default to the expertise” of the Defence Forces and Gardaí — the radical notion that professionals might know more about safely handling explosives than a roomful of people who mostly argue over cycle lanes.

Well. You could have dropped a grenade in the room and gotten less of a reaction. Councillors were leaping to their feet, demanding retractions, their honour besmirched. Someone made a snide comment about McDonald’s age. It was a festival of high dudgeon and hurt feelings, a perfect symphony of Irish indignation.

And after all that local constitutional theatre, the result? Twenty-three councillors voted in favour. The bylaws were passed. The Defence Forces won their import route. New Ross got its headline. And the rest of the country, presumably, will wait to see if the town is “blown off the face of the earth,” as one councillor put it, or blown back onto the map. So, congratulations, New Ross. You’re open for business, let’s hope it gets booming.

This original story and reporting first appeared in the Wexford People

This is a new section in the Irish Politics Newsletter called “All Politics Is Local”. It’s a new section dedicated to the weird and wonderful stories from local Irish Politics that won’t make the National news. There will be no payway wall on this section.

Independent Councillor Seamie Moore, hero of the asphalt, took to Naas District Court to defend the most time-honoured tradition in Irish politics: parking exactly where you like so long as you’re doing something important. The charge? Overstaying his grace period while attending an “official function” at Naas Town Hall. The defence? Officialdom itself.

Cllr Moore said he does not believe he should have to pay the fine because he was working in an official capacity for the council at the time.

When asked if a member of the public would be expected to pay, he said “Yes” but that he should not have to because he was carrying out work for the council.

When asked if he would pay the charge, he said he will “refuse”, maintaining that it is “unjustifiable” given he was on official council business.

Moore wasn’t joyriding or illegally parking — he was at an award ceremony, shaking hands, smiling for photos, and accepting something shiny on behalf of Kildare County Council. A grateful citizenry, apparently, wanted their mayor presentable, not sprinting out mid-applause to feed a parking meter

When queried by KFM radio, Mayor Moore cheerfully admitted he’d been nine minutes over. Nine minutes! In political time, that’s roughly how long it takes to promise to end the homeless crisis. He also confessed that, yes, ordinary mortals would indeed be expected to pay such a fine — but he, a man on official duty, should be exempt. It’s not hypocrisy, you see. Its hierarchy, and rightly so, says you.

Council officials, sensing the makings of a precedent and that there’s one thing civil servants hate, it’s precedent — that dangerous contagion in local government — warned that if he didn’t cough up, everyone might start thinking they’re above the law. Mayor Moore called that bluff, refused to pay, and happily marched himself to court.

The Judicial gods of Naas District Court heard his plea. The case was dismissed. Mayor Moore emerged victorious, feeling “justified,” as though he’d struck a blow for local democracy, and mayors of minor towns up and down the country who have difficulty getting parking.

This story first appeared on KFM.

This is a new section in the Irish Politics Newsletter called “All Politics Is Local”. It’s a new section dedicated to the weird and wonderful stories from Irish Politics that won’t make the National news. There will be no payway wall on this section.