DÁIL SKETCH:NOW THAT we can look forward to working well into our 90s – it's only a matter of time now – Mary Harney provided a note of consolation.
As the Taoiseach and two of his Ministers were in Government Buildings unveiling details of a revised national pension scheme, Minister for Health Harney was giving us the lowdown on hernias and varicose veins.
It was comforting.
Then, egged on by Fine Gael’s Dr James Reilly, she took a dander in the direction of gastric disorders and nursing home care.
Across in Merrion Street, Mary Hanafin was breaking the news to horrified young reporters that they’ll be nearly 70 before they become eligible for the pension.
Earlier in the day, Inda Kinny also came over all medical, and in a manner less than bedside.
“The people on the streets are suffering in enraged silence,” barked the Fine Gael leader.
He repeated that there will be “revolution on the streets” if the Government keeps chucking money at the banks.
Cowen and Kenny are very much at odds over how the banking crisis should be handled. They haven’t had much of a chance to tease out the issues across the floor of the house recently, what with all that recent unpleasantness over resignations.
Yesterday morning – in the absence of any hissy-fits or tortured tweets from the conflicted Greens – normal business resumed, with Biffo and Inda roaring at each other and James “Bonkers” Bannon rediscovering his voice and vigorously defending his leader.
He took grave offence when the Taoiseach declared that if Deputy Kenny continued to push Fine Gael’s policy on the banks “he’s even more foolish than I thought he was”. Inda refused to be provoked. “I have no intention of descending to the level of personal invective,” he sniffed, leaving that to Bonkers and the rest of the gang.
“He’s the person who said previously in the House that we are not able or qualified to make a judgment,” bridled the FG leader. “It’s beneath contempt.” Whereupon James Bannon waded in to uphold Inda’s honour. We’ve missed James.
“He is two-thirds the Taoiseach!” That had everyone scratching their heads.
Bannon’s roars put Biffo in mind of the dealers who sell pramloads of sweets outside GAA stadiums on big match day.
He looked across coolly at the incandescent deputy for Longford Westmeath and drawled: “Anyone else for the last of the choc ices?” Quote of the day for Biffo there.
Meanwhile, Eamon Gilmore wondered how the Green Party was getting on with its “crop rotation” policy. Would John Gormley be giving way to Ciarán Cuffe in the next Cabinet reshuffle? Would the Greens get another junior minister? Could Senator Dan Boyle get the nod to join Government? Nothing to do with Biffo – that’s Green stuff.
But the queries gave people lots of scope to mention Lanigan’s Ball and people stepping out and stepping in.
As for the Greens, they kept their counsel. Not as much as a tweet from Danbo – much to the annoyance of the political correspondents who sat for much of the day hatching their laptops, hoping for a tweet from Boyle’s twitter. Where the chairman of the Greens is concerned, Twitter is the new plinth.
By last evening, the only nugget to fly from Danbo’s fevered fingers was a fascinating: “My late father used to work in a uranium mine in Canada.”
The party went into conclave at teatime. On the outside, normally sensible individuals discussed in detail whether or not John Gormley would be “rotating”, like he was some class of barbecue chicken.
In reality, did anybody outside of the Kildare Street bubble give two hoots about whether or not the leader of the Greens was going to gyrate and rotovate himself out of office? Or if Dan Boyle or AN Other might become “a super junior” with high-chair access to the Cabinet table? Or that a signed document might be in existence promising Ciarán Cuffe a go at being a minister.
Did anyone really care? Enda Kenny didn’t think so. His people, when not silently enraged or revolting on the streets, “look at this Cabinet [and] all they see is talk about jobs for the boys and the girls . . . All that is being talked about are well-paid and well-pensioned jobs, when 434,000 men and women are on the Live Register.”
Not to mention people under 50 who now face the prospect of having to stay in employment until they are 68.
And Brian Cowen called Enda Kenny foolish yesterday? As the ditzy Greens got themselves into knots again? One can only imagine what he really makes of them, and their increasingly tiresome antics.
