DÁIL SKETCH:THEY FLOUNCED from the Dáil in high dudgeon, marching bravely towards a long period in the wilderness.
They were going outside, maybe for some time. Dramatic scenes. You could have cut the indifference with a knife.
Government deputies were so shocked, they literally shook. And shook until they could laugh no more.
“It’s all one joke, isn’t it?” pouted Ming the Humourless, before he joined the ranks of the flouncers and made his big exit.
The walkout happened during the Order of Business, which is when the day’s timetable is proposed by the Taoiseach.
Sinn Féin wanted an emergency debate on the proposed payment by the State of over €715 million to Anglo Irish Bank bondholders.
There was no time to lose. With a midday deadline looming for the handover of the dosh, the dastardly deed would be done within the hour.
The Shinners and the Socialists demanded speaking time. If only they could put their case, the Government would surely see the money should not be paid over. Enda Kenny could then lift the telephone to Anglo’s Alan Dukes and call off the transaction.
But the Taoiseach wouldn’t entertain his request. “We require a clear focus and a steady head so we can retain our reputation and our confidence,” said Enda, in a rare moment of lucidity.
He tried to explain the situation in simple terms. “If Deputy Adams goes to his local furniture store in Dundalk and offers the owner half the price of a suite of furniture, I am quite sure his reputation and his integrity will suffer as a consequence. Similarly, with this country.” There was a baffled silence in the chamber. The Sinn Féin leader shot a sideways, vaguely sympathetic, glance at him.
Tom Fleming, the Independent deputy for Kerry South, made his most incisive intervention since joining the 31st Dáil: “This is more serious than furniture.” Enda’s daft Dundalk analogy gave Gerry an opportunity to deliver the clunkiest link of the day: “I have to say the Taoiseach’s metaphors are suffering a lot, but not as much as the people on trolleys and in hospital corridors . . .”
Willie O’Dea is meticulous about metaphors. “Inappropriate,” he sniffed.
It was his party leader Micheál Martin, who started the bondholder ball rolling. Micheál pointed out, not unreasonably, that the Taoiseach, his Tánaiste and his Minister for Finance regularly insisted before the election that Anglo’s senior bondholders wouldn’t get a ha’penny more when they got in.
However, due to the deal agreed by the previous Fianna Fáil administration “I admit it hasn’t been possible to unravel the agreement.” Despite their best efforts, the ECB wouldn’t budge.
“He’s misleading the House!” spluttered Willie.
On the plus side, said Enda, his Government managed to get a €10 billion interest rate cut.
“Words mean nothing in here,” said Micheál Martin, minister of three governments past, taking the term “slow learner” to Olympian heights.
Willie was incensed.
He fixed Enda with a contemptuous eye. “He’s some liar, I’ll tell you that . . . He’s some liar.” Then Micheál Martin came out with what would have been a killer line, if anyone understood it.
“The Taoiseach is the best man I ever saw for claiming he scored goals with his hind legs.”
Enda responded by asking what would Micheál know about his meetings with European leaders? He wasn’t there.
Although “in the past, the Fianna Fáil Party had ways of finding out what people were saying when it was not supposed to be listening”. Not content with justifying unpopular measures by blaming them on the last three governments, the Taoiseach is now resorting to events which happened nearly 30 years ago. The phone tapping scandal happened in 1983.
The Opposition found some light relief by taunting the Government over their loss in the referendum.
“Is Minister Howlin going to Greece to give them a hand?” With Ministers Shatter and Howlin in the firing line over the rejection of their plan to give the Oireachtas greater powers of investigation, the joke in Leinster House yesterday was that Mr Papandreou had already been on the phone asking the duo to mastermind their national ballot.
Meanwhile, Gerry Adams, Joe Higgins, and the rest of the Independent deputies were fuming over not getting a chance to light a fire under the bondholders before they got their midday money.
“My colleagues and I are leaving the chamber,” he announced, whereupon he gathered himself up and walked, his deputies falling in behind in solemn procession.
A beaming Gerry rather ruined the moment by stopping to heartily congratulate the parents of new Labour TD, Patrick Nulty, in the distinguished visitors’ gallery for his first day in the Dáil.
Joe Higgins said democracy was the loser and the United Left Alliance would leave the chamber until “12 o’clock”. Richard Boyd Barrett signalled he was leaving too. “Don’t be so stupid,” snorted junior minister Shane McEntee. Shane Ross and Stephen Donnelly – the commercial side of the House – also readied themselves to go. Finian McGrath looked torn.
“Flip Flop Finian!” came the taunts.
“I don’t intend to leave the house,” said the angelic Micheál Martin. “I believe my role is to stay in the house and debate these issues.” Eventually, after much standing up and sitting down, the Independents, including Finian, led each other out.
Stephen Donnelly slipped back in two minutes later because he was moving a Bill.
Gerry Adams returned 20 minutes later. He pointed to his watch. “It’s gone 12. The money is paid over now.”
