Fásten your seatbelts for a ride with the space cadets

DÁIL SKETCH:This 'accountability' talk is almost enough to take the good out of the hard work being done in Florida by Fás

DEAR MAMMY, Thank you very much for the lovely overalls, I will keep them for when I return home with my new qualification, as it is very hot here in Florida and all the Fás people say the most comfortable thing to wear during the day is a pair of speedos, especially around the pool.

The Fás crowd are very jolly and I hope to learn a lot from them when they get back from the golf course.

I didn't see the lads on the way over in the airplane, because they were sitting up the front.

But I could hear them before take-off, clinking their glasses and shouting "Fásten your seatbelts, ladies!"

As you know, Mammy, I was hoping to get the start in the bricklaying in Orlando. But the bosses from Fás keep calling me a "space cadet". They think this is very funny.

We are visiting a place called "Nasa" tomorrow and I'm going to get my picture taken with some important people. The Fás people are sending the snap back home to all the newspapers and the Government.

"That'll keep the Tánaiste happy!" said one of my new friends and everybody laughed. The Fás lads are always in good form.

When the Fás lads heard I was doing a steady line, they said I should have brought Herself along with me. There would have been plenty for her to do while I was away training to be a space cadet.

She could have gone to the nail bar in Cocoa Beach with all the other FWAGS. (This is what they call the Fás wives and girlfriends, who travel everywhere with their man and always strive to look their best.)

Mammy, you said in your last letter that people at home are giving out about the lads from Fás who are looking after me here in Disneyland. I can't believe that.

Who is this Enda Kenny, who said in the Dáil it's a disgrace that the taxpayer is paying for the FWAGS to have their nails done in Cocoa Beach? Who is this Eamon Gilmore?

According to you Mammy, he was giving out in the Dáil too: "What on earth were the top brass in Fás doing, over looking at the space centre in Florida? I mean, do we have apprentice astronauts, or something?"

Hah! Shows what that Gilmore lad knows, because Mammy, I'm a space cadet. The guys from Fás say I'll be able to work anywhere by the time they've finished with me.

Anyways, I was delighted you wrote that the Taoiseach, a son of Offaly like myself, said on Monday that he has full confidence in the "excellent public servant" Rody Molloy, the main man in Fás and my friend.

But then you wrote that Biffo wasn't so sure about this when he spoke on the subject again in the Dáil.

Apparently, he said:

"I'm not standing over any profligate spending or any spending that is unauthorised."

My Fás friends are not too happy with this. This "accountability" stuff has put them in terrible bad humour.

They're afraid to tell the ladies at the beauty salon in Cocoa beach about this development. The girls love the Government. They love the Taoiseach.

When they get their nails French manicured and their legs French polished, they have a little joke between themselves.

Waving the Fás credit card they shout: "Charge it to Cocoa the Cowen!" Well, that's the all news for now, Mammy.

Your loving son . . .