THERE WAS open warfare between the Coalition partners in Bray last weekend when a team of Labour staffers took on their Fine Gael counterparts in a paintball contest.

The prize was bragging rights: Labour’s young bucks swaggered around the corridors of Leinster House all week having slaughtered their opposition.

The challenge was organised by Cónán Ó Broin, who is parliamentary assistant to Labour deputy Robert Dowds.

“We had five separate games and the final score was 76 points for Labour and 26 for Fine Gael,” says Cónán. “It was a total rout – we bet them out the gate.”

It seems Fine Gael’s dozen hadn’t done their preparation. “I advised the FG lads to make sure they came up with a strategy, but they adopted a laissez-faire attitude. In the first game, we shot them all within three minutes.”

The idea for the outing came from a contest between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael a number of years ago called “civil war paintball”. The participants in last week’s escapade were going to call their escapade “budget paintball” but they settled on the less contentious title of “1913 lockout paintball”. Fianna Fáil has now thrown down the gauntlet to Saturday’s victors.

On Wednesday, Ó Broin watched the big student march from the grounds of Leinster House. Last year, he was USI deputy president and a member of the platform party after their march against cuts. As parliamentary assistant to a Labour TD, he “went out for a look but kept the head down”.