Baby girl for Joe and a song for Biffo to croon at Christmas drinks

DÁIL SKETCH:Thank heavens for the Christmas recess – no more talk of haircuts, bonuses and mark-ups

FIRST SOME good news.

We reported that Fine Gael’s Joe McHugh looked rather stressed in the Dáil on Tuesday evening. Rushing in and out of the chamber, doing a fine impression of a hen on a hot griddle. No sign of his wife, Deputy Olwyn Enright.

He was missing yesterday morning.

Ditto, Olwyn.

A two-word text message landed at lunchtime.

“Pink Smoke!”

Aedin McHugh was born at 10.20am on the historic day the Government won a vote to accept foreign aid to keep the country afloat. The IMF and EU are into us now for €85 billion. Shocking.

On the bright side, the Dáil got a bailout baby. (And 13-month-old Darragh got a little sister).

“Seven pounds and four ounces . . . that would be a small hen turkey,” pronounced one rural deputy upon hearing the happy news, abandoning the traditional bags of sugar for a more seasonal newborn-weight comparison.

“We’re absolutely delighted,” said Joe, who had to leave Olwyn and Aedin in Galway’s Portiuncula Hospital and drive back to Leinster House in time to vote in the early afternoon.

He could have stayed put because the Government won handily in the end, even if some Green deputies left it until the final seconds to vote just to annoy their senior partner.

It’s an unhappy marriage now. They’ll be glad to get a break from each other over Christmas.

Although it could be more permanent if the Greens decide they can endure no more.

The Dáil returns to work on January 12th – an unusually short recess by its standard.

In the meantime, while our problems aren’t going anywhere, won’t it be wonderful not to have to listen to talk about bondholders and interest rates, bank bonuses and austerity measures, draw downs, mark-ups and haircuts?

Although yesterday at least we discovered that the Fianna Fáil end of Government is learning a little humility after over a decade of ruling the roost.

There was a time not so long ago when any amount of Ministers would have shrugged off an €85 billion humiliation with a nonchalant “it’s only money”.

And Biffo had a new favourite word yesterday. “Conflate.”

He can sing “Conflation once again” at the bar lobby’s Christmas drinks.

The Taoiseach said Enda Kenny was conflating the bankers’ bonuses with bonuses given to “middle-ranking” civil servants. Middle-ranking civil servants of our acquaintance are fuming at this, saying they never got a sniff of any bonuses.

Would the lucky ones be the same crowd who had their salary cuts reversed by Minister Lenihan last year because they didn’t get their bonuses? It’s impossible to keep up.

In the chamber it was day two of The Big Wind as Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin rejoiced in the novelty of speaking rights. He seems to be under the mistaken impression that he is spokesperson for the Dáil Pyrotechnical, as opposed to Technical, Group.

He IS exploding at every opportunity and it’s becoming tiresome. Ceann Comhairle Séamus Kirk seems particularly irritated by Sleeveen – nothing to do with the fact that they come from the same general neck of the woods.

“How many seconds do you think I’m on my feet?” he demanded of Cap’n Kirk, who was trying to stop him in mid-fulmination.

“Too many!” crowed the Fianna Fáilers.

“Well!” harrumphed Sleeveen, “It might be too many for some of those, but I can assume they’ll be sitting on their ASS somewhere else after the next general election, and it’ll not be in here!”

And everyone roared, made giddy by Caoimhghín’s use of a slightly bold word in the Dáil.

They became rowdy. Joan Burton got worked up over the banks regulation Bill, and Eamon Gilmore took umbrage with Cap’n Kirk, who got angry over an “outrageous slur on the chair” and made to throw Joan out, whereupon Kathleen Lynch told Kirk to control the baying Fianna Fáil “rabble” and the Ceann Comhairle threatened to suspend the house. “Suspend it so!” bellowed Michael D. “I’m doing the best I can,” croaked Seamus.

Thank heavens for the Christmas recess.