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'IS that an application form I see in your top pocket?" Enda Kenny raised eyebrows within Fine Gael with this remark to Michael Lowry at the 50th birthday party of Phil Hogan two years ago.
The Fine Gael leader made no fewer than three references acknowledging the Independent TD's attendance at the party in Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny, in July 2010.
The party had been organised by local councillors to mark Mr Hogan's birthday and was attended by no less than five Fine Gael figures who would become Cabinet members nine months later.
The guest list of 150 in the function room of The Corner Bar also included Dr James Reilly, Frances Fitzgerald, Paul Kehoe, Paddy Burke, Mairead McGuinness, Bernard Durkan, Frank Feighan, Maurice Cummins, John-Paul Phelan, Paul Coghlan and Paudie Coffey.
During his celebratory speech, Mr Kenny went around the room, picking out fellahs and cracking jokes.
Picking out Mr Lowry, his former cabinet colleague who resigned from Fine Gael in disgrace over revelations of his inappropriate business dealings with Ben Dunne in 1996, he said: "Is that an application form I see in your top pocket?"
Fine Gael insisted that Mr Kenny was joking, but at the time opinion was divided within the party over whether there was any further meaning in the comments.
Mr Lowry was then voting with the Fianna Fail-led coalition, under a deal struck in 2007 and he was being attacked by Fine Gael for it.
But this wasn't the first time that Fine Gael feted their prodigal son. Mr Kenny had a cosy encounter with him on the campaign trail before the 2007 general election.
Fine Gael TD Noel Coonan, who won a seat for the party after a 10-year gap in Mr Lowry's Tipperary North constituency, took exception to the attendance of a number of independent councillors allied to Lowry at European Parliament candidate Sean Kelly's campaign launch in 2009. The Fine Gael MEP subsequently attended a function to mark the former minister's 21 years in politics.
The relationship between elements of the Fine Gael hierarchy, including the leader and his cabal, and Mr Lowry was extremely cordial.
After all, Mr Lowry, Mr Kenny and Mr Hogan were part of former Taoiseach John Bruton's kitchen cabinet, along with Ivan Yates and Sean Barrett.
This group also served as Mr Bruton's Praetorian guard when he came under attack in a heave in early 1994 -- just months before becoming Taoiseach. History would repeat itself 16 years later when Mr Kenny was the subject of a heave.
Mr Hogan masterminded the defence of his friend, but there were a few Lowry-esque patterns to the shrewd tactics he adopted to beat the rebels.
If Mr Kenny had gone for a minority government, supported by Independents, after the 2011 general election there's no doubt he would have turned to Mr Lowry.
In Government for just three weeks, the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal's report saw Fine Gael's and Mr Kenny's attitude to Mr Lowry harden -- officially, at least.
The language in findings against Mr Lowry, such as a "cynical and venal abuse of office" and "profoundly corrupt", prompted condemnation from the Government. Mr Kenny called on him to resign as a TD and the Government put forward a motion of censure.
But much like the rest of the Government's follow-up to the Moriarty Tribunal, nothing has changed since.
Mr Lowry never filled out the form but he has continued to be welcomed into Fine Gael ministers' offices.
Irish Independent
