At least they're cutting Kildare Street emissions

DÁIL SKETCH:A LAZY hazy afternoon chewing the cud in the Dáil chamber.

Ah, yes, it could be only one thing: the lush pasture of Agriculture Questions, favourite habitat of the Lesser Spotted Deputy.

One of the main topics for discussion was eructating cows. Or belching bovines, if you prefer. With four stomachs, there’s a lot of gas to expel. Either end.

Methane was mentioned, but, with supreme forbearance, nobody said the f-word.

But make no mistake, Government Deputy Chief Whip John Cregan wanted to know what Minister Brendan Smith intends to do about farting cows.

The FF TD for Limerick West wasn’t worried about the ozone layer. He was concerned that requirements for Ireland to reduce emissions might lead to a reduction in the national herd.

Smith assured Cregan that our flatulent Daisys and Buttercups will continue to be cherished and there isn’t the slightest chance that cattle numbers will be cut.

Fianna Fáil may be in coalition with the Green Party, but those deputies with a rural vote are familiar with farmers saying the Green Party wants to halve the size of the national herd in order to decrease the amount of methane going into the atmosphere.

Clever Cregan now has it on the record from the Minister that this won’t happen.

Anyway, the Government is already doing its bit for the ozone layer by refusing to hold the three outstanding byelections, thus reducing hot-air emissions in Kildare Street.

This week there was a lot of interest in the goings on at the business end of your average cow. While Trevor Sargent of the Greens is no longer a junior minister at Agriculture, he still takes a keen interest in farming matters.

But did he have to choose such a warm day to bring up the subject of bovine diarrhoea? Only Trevor, bless him, could come up with a question about the availability of homeopathic remedies for scuttery cows.

It’s always refreshing when something does exactly what it says on the tin. So it was in the Dáil yesterday afternoon:

– What are they on about now then?

– Just a load of manure.

– Yes, we know that. But what’s the subject?

– They’re not TALKING manure, they are talking ABOUT manure.

You can see how people could get confused. There also seems to be some confusion about the exact whereabouts of the Dig-out Bill, first introduced in October 2006 on the steps of Government Buildings by then taoiseach Bertie Ahern and tánaiste Michael McDowell.

The Bill, also known as the Fig-leaf Bill, was readied up by Bertie and Michael after the PDs got a fit of the vapours following a particularly entertaining stint in the Mahon tribunal witness box by Ahern. While the public fell around the place laughing at his tortured account of the night he was surprised with €8,000 in cash following a whip-round on his behalf in a Manchester hotel, McDowell’s PDs had a crisis of conscience.

They went into a monumental sulk that lasted an entire weekend and it looked like the FF/PD coalition had finally fallen apart. But, thanks to proposed “changements” to the ethics legislation, as Bertie put it in the Dáil, the partnership survived.

And their rekindled union produced the Ethics in Public Office (Amendments) Bill.

Where is it now? That’s what Eamon Gilmore wanted to know yesterday. In fact, wasn’t it Biffo himself, when he was minister for finance, who introduced the Bill? And now, four years later, he is Taoiseach and telling the Dáil that he cannot review the official code of conduct for officeholders until that legislation is passed.

Why the delay? Biffo wasn’t bothered. The Bill is there and “it’s available to be enacted”. It’s up to the Chief Whip and the Minister for Finance to decide when it should be taken.

Nothing to do with him.

“That’s nonsense,” harrumphed Eamon, pointing out that the whip acts on orders from the Government, headed by the Taoiseach.

We think the Labour leader was being somewhat unreasonable here, expecting Biffo to admit he’s in charge.

As he once famously declared, it’s his Government, and he’ll run it as he sees fit. Or not, as the case may be.

So Eamon moved on to the Taoiseach’s ard fheis speech in 2009, in which he promised new legislation to regulate political donations, particularly with regard to referendum campaigns. Any sign? “That will be a matter for the line minister in due course. I believe it would be helpful to bring forward such legislation,” said the man who is supposed to be in charge.

There’s so much bull these days from Biffo, perhaps it would be best to scrap the leaders’ set-piece altogether and just extend the time for Agriculture Questions.

At least there the manure is good, honest and homeopathic.