DÁIL SKETCH:FROM THE observation decks on top of Noonan's Pillars, you get a wonderful view of Clarity and Certainty above the pediment of Government Buildings.

And, if you drop a single red cent in the slot and look into the telescope, you might just be able to make out the men and women from the EU and the IMF milling about inside. They’re the ones with the whips and leather aprons.

Not yet a week old, and Noonan’s Banking Pillars are already being spoken of as a new wonder of the modern world. Enda is impressed. He thinks they are up there with the Hanging Gardens of Belmullet and he wasn’t afraid to say so in the Dáil yesterday.

As for the goddesses of Clarity and Certainty – Enda is clearly devoted. He invoked them again and again when answering Opposition questions on the financial crisis.

Gerry Adams and Shane Ross asked why the Government didn’t make the bondholders pay their share of the banking debt instead of making taxpayers shoulder all the financial burden.

“We are bringing Clarity and Certainty to the position,” replied Enda, like he had booked them to play at the next Fine Gael ardfheis.

But you said you would make the bondholders pay, they insisted.

“We now have Clarity and Certainty,” he kept repeating.

What else can we make out from the observation decks? Obviously we can see CC’s triplet sisters, Faith, Hope and Charity, upon whom we have all been relying since September 2008.

But any sign of the bondholders? There’s a lot of smoke billowing about.

Are they burning? Here come our guides again, Gerry Adams and Shane Ross, to explain the landscape.

Or the Appalling Vista, as they would prefer to call it.

(Things can sometimes look a little hazy from the viewing platforms on Noonan’s Pillars. They are nearly as high as the first wonder of the 31st Dáil: Mary Mitchell O’Connor’s shoes.)

“Your party said that not one red cent would be committed to the banks unless they impose losses on their bondholders. And yet, last week, you poured another €24 billion of the people’s money into those banks,” the Sinn Féin leader told the Taoiseach.

Which indicates the smoke means something else entirely, explained Gerry. What you can see in the distance is not bondholders burning, but the Fine Gael election manifesto going up in flames.

This is a matter of great annoyance to Adams, who says the entire nation wants the bonfire of the bondholders promised to them by Enda before the general election.

“I just don’t understand it,” he bleated.

“Clarity and Certainty,” soothed Enda. “We now have two pillar banks.” (Or pillock banks, to give them their proper due.)

Gerry added there was no point either in trying to locate the Labour manifesto from the top of Noonan’s Pillars. It wasn’t on fire because it has been “totally shredded”.

Shane Ross put on his glasses and took them off again, then he chewed on them a bit and put them back on before squinting over at the Taoiseach’s two new female deities.

“The Clarity and Certainty is that your Government has completely and utterly surrendered to the IMF and the EU,” he told Enda. Then he held up a newspaper cutting.

“Does the Taoiseach read the Lex Column in the Financial Times?” demanded Ross.

Is the Pope from Tubbercurry? “The Lex column is not the sovereign government in this country,” sniffed Enda.

That’s the job of the EU-IMF and Joe Duffy.

Then Shane returned to a very serious situation first raised by Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty last week during the debate on the stress tests.

“Your Government has made the mistake [of ignoring delighted bondholders] by wearing the clothes of the last government of Brian Cowen,” he told the Taoiseach.

You have to feel sorry for Micheál Martin. Ever since the Fine Gael-Labour Government came to power, he’s had nothing to wear apart from the clothes he was standing up in when the changeover occurred.

Michael Noonan arrived later in the afternoon wearing Biffo’s favourite grey suit.

If nothing else, there must be hygiene and decency issues.

So what else can we see from the top of Noonan’s Pillars? Is that Fine Gael’s Five-Point Star? Yes it is, says Enda.

No, it isn’t, say the Opposition.

“Five-point U-turn,” according Gerry Adams.

You can see all sorts from Noonan’s Pillars.

There’s Mick Wallace’s pink shirt. You couldn’t miss it through the telescope, making its way down the plinth yesterday afternoon with the rest of the Technical Group of Independent deputies and members of the United Left Alliance.

With Finian McGrath acting as MC for the occasion, they met the media and called for a referendum on the bank bailout. Finian described the group as “a cross-section of Irish society”, from Stephen Donnelly and Shane Ross on the right to TDs at various points to the left and with Mattie McGrath in the middle of them.

Ming Flanagan called the Government “cowardly dogs”. “Fyne Gael has stolen Brian Lenihan’s clothes,” declared Mick Wallace, who is unlikely to ever find himself in Lenihan’s situation.

Thank God, Lenihan found himself something to wear before a vote was called on the Order of Business.

As for Clarity and Certainty, they seem a bit flighty, despite Enda’s support.

Until we’re more sure of them, better stick with the deities we know: Faith, Hope and Charity. They’re like family now.