DÁIL SKETCH:Luther King fought unjust laws just like the household charge protesters will, says TD

AND ON the 18th day of July the masses will rise up and march on the gates of Leinster House.

So says Richard Boyd Barrett.

And on the 18th day of July, the masses will rise up and march out the gates of Leinster House.

So says the Dáil calendar.

One lot coming from their constituencies to protest against household and water charges, the other lot belting back to their constituencies, as it is the day the House shuts down for the summer recess.

The People Before Profit deputy for Dún Laoghaire is looking forward to the occasion very much. He used his slot during Leaders’ Questions to get in a big plug for it.

This is going to be box office, for July 18th is not just a day when the campaigners against the charges stage a national demonstration; it is also the day when a humble Irish parliamentarian joins the pantheon of the greats: Martin Luther King, Gandhi . . . Richard Barr Boycott.

According to himself.

Given that Richard will be in the role of both a TD (outgoing) and a protester (incoming), does this mean he will be marching on himself? However, RBB’s big plan to mark the end of the political season with a major demo may not provide the happy confluence he desires. The Taoiseach threatened to rain on his parade by signalling he might keep the Dáil running into extra-time.

An all-party shiver coursed around the chamber when he said that.

If that turns out to be the case, numbers at Deputy Barr Boycott’s protest may benefit from the addition of severely disgruntled and discommoded politicians, journalists and Leinster House staffers forced to cancel holiday plans because of Enda’s work ethic.

Needless to say, the Taoiseach doesn’t think much of Richard’s protest. He should be ashamed of himself, thundered Enda, deliberately encouraging people to break the law by urging them not to pay their household tax.

But Deputy Barr Boycott was not making any apologies.

“When laws are unjust, as people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King understood very well, it is absolutely justified and legitimate to resist those unjust laws,” he loftily declared.

Richard has a dream. He spread it under Enda’s feet.

“Why don’t you address the substantial issue raised by the huge popular boycott of the household charge – acknowledged now by the IMF? And that is, that ordinary people cannot and should not have to take any more pain of this unjust sword.”

The Taoiseach doesn’t tread softly when it comes to his dealings with Deputy Barr Boycott. He trampled on Richard’s dream.

“I’m not sure what tablets you took today, but for you to equate yourself or put yourself in the mix with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, I think, is a bridge too far.”

All RBB wants the Taoiseach to do is abandon “the hated and unjust” household charge and any proposed property charge. If he does this, it would also save the protesters, “crippled by austerity”, the expense of having to buy bus and train tickets to Dublin.

It would certainly be a kindness on the Taoiseach’s part if he abandoned the charge. The alternative is Deputy Barr Boycott encouraging hard-pressed citizens to fork out on train tickets and then join his long march, and them already crippled by the austerity.

Enda indicated the working group established to look into a property tax has produced its report and it is now with the Minister for the Environment, who will consider it and bring a memo to Cabinet. Thoughts turned to Big Phil.

“He’s on his holidays,” remarked Michael Healy-Rae, who has a new hairstyle. He’s ditched the trademark Healy-Rae comb-over – modelled memorably by his father in the last Dáil – and looks very smart too.

Minister Hogan is in Rio de Janeiro at a UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

We can only hope that delegates get more information out of him on the Government’s major environmental initiative than the media did when it was launched two weeks ago. Journalists were kept away from the event.

Still, it was rather unfair of Healy-Rae to allege the Minister is on holiday when he’s about important government business and staying at a seaside hotel in the bikini capital of the world.

What with learning all about sustainable energy and reading the working group’s report on property tax, Big Phil probably won’t get a chance to unpack his black-and-amber mankini and strut his stuff along the Copacabana beach.

And with that thought . . .