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When the cats are away, the mice couldn’t be bothered.
A double dearth of leaders in the Dáil on Wednesday produced a very dull episode of Substitutes’ Questions.
The Taoiseach was in Limerick attending the funeral of Nellie O’Donovan, mother of Patrick, the Minister for Higher Education.
As leader of the main Opposition party, the Sinn Féin leader rarely entertains the Government lower orders when the organ grinder is otherwise engaged.
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Mary Lou McDonald also has a big speaking engagement in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday morning, so she was probably back in Cabra throwing a few things into a bag for the trip. She will be a very welcome guest of the John Boyle O’Reilly Club when “upwards of 500 people, dignitaries and other invited guests” will gather to hear some home thoughts from abroad.
Trouper that she is, we expect Mary Lou will deliver a tour-de-force for Sinn Féin’s ever faithful and generous American audience, even if the figures from Thursday’s Irish Times opinion poll prove less than conducive to happy thoughts.
A little adulation on the other side of the Atlantic should keep spirits buoyed until it’s time to head back home to bruising political reality.
Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, the TD for Cavan-Monaghan, kept the Dáil show on the road for his boss with a rare appearance at substitute Leaders’ Questions. He faced Fine Gael deputy leader, Heather Humphreys, who was filling in for Simon Harris.
Given that the Minister for Social Protection is also a TD for Cavan-Monaghan, exchanges between the two were commendably civilised and disappointingly lacklustre.
The appearance of the Palestinian women’s football team in the public gallery lifted the mood in the chamber in advance of a particularly sombre session, which included the lack of services for children with disabilities, the war in Gaza, and the long-demanded release of the Garda files on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
Heather read out concise replies to the questions. There was none of the usual back and forth between the parties.
Because Simon Harris allowed poor Kay to expire on his watch, the nation’s boffins are reduced to depending on the kindness of strangers now
As proceedings progressed, it was obvious that even the Dáil’s leading notice-boxes had decided to keep their powder dry until the reappearance of the big guns next week. An intriguing question from Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly did pique some interest.
She read it out carefully, but should have begun her contribution by saying, a la Michael Caine: “Not many people know this.”
An unspectacular opening line explained why she was reading from a script.
“Minister, high-performance computing is at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and central to growing the Irish economy and securing next generation FDI.”
Riveting.
But then it got better.
“Under the watch of An Taoiseach when he was higher education minister, Ireland’s national supercomputer known as K reached the end of its life last November without a new supercomputer to take its place.”
Who knew? We have a national supercomputer, and it has its own name and everything. It’s down as a single letter, a capital K, in the Dáil record. But we like to think her actual scientific name is Kay. And she knows absolutely everything.
Most of us have a Kay in our lives.
And here’s the thing. With Kay gone from our lives since November (we never knew she existed until Louise broke the news, but we miss her loads already), Ireland has this mortifying void in its mega-machine armoury, and everyone in the global scientific community is laughing at us.
Had the Taoiseach been present, Louise would have lambasted him for letting poor Kay go before finding a suitably brilliant supercomputer successor, probably called Elle.
And guess what?
Because Simon Harris allowed poor Kay to expire on his watch, the nation’s boffins are reduced to depending on the kindness of strangers now and have to go cap-in-hand to use another country’s number-crunching data monster.
“Until we have a new national supercomputer in place, academics, industry and the State will have to use the national supercomputer of Luxembourg,” revealed the TD for Dublin Fingal. “The failure by Government to invest in this critical infrastructure has embarrassed Ireland in the eyes of the European and international technology communities, and it will no doubt cost us the next generation of talent and affect Ireland’s ability to attract the FDI of the future.”
I can’t give you the detail there. I don’t know why this hasn’t happened, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I will ask the Minister to come back to you with a response
— Heather Humphreys
Louise asked Heather to give a commitment that the Government will immediately release funds to secure a new national supercomputer.
We have a national supercomputer. Fab (or at least we used to, until Simon bumped her off).
Who knew?
The Ceann Comhairle was agog.
“Wow!” gurgled Seán Ó Fearghaíl. “I’d love to see it!”
Heather Humphreys gamely replied to the question, indicating that she wasn’t entirely all at sea.
“As a former minister for business, I am somewhat aware of what you’re referring to there,” she declared. “And, I know that we have... I think it’s ICHEC... er... do a lot of work in that area.”
She battled on in an attempt to explain what had happened to poor Kay and why supercomputer Elle wasn’t pressed into action.
“I can’t give you the detail there. I don’t know why this hasn’t happened, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I will ask the Minister to come back to you with a response.”
Perhaps the Taoiseach formerly known as the Minister for Higher Education will be able to end Ireland’s supercomputer embarrassment when he returns to the chamber next week.
He should get back in good time for his next showdown with the Sinn Féin leader.
Mary Lou McDonald should also make it back handily enough from her John Boyle O’Reilly gig on Saturday in Massachusetts.
Harris will be winging his way back from an election on Sunday in Boyle where there are no candidates called O’Reilly.
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