Hush falls as caretaker Cowen speaks softly and takes stick

DÁIL SKETCH:TAOISEACH IS still the title, but caretaker is now the job.

Brian Cowen looked crushed, and he sounded weary.

“These are not normal times. This is not business as usual,” a solemn Enda Kenny told a subdued Dáil.

Not that Cowen needed to be told. He knew he had reached the point of no return. It’s over.

After the years of hinted brilliance, the accession by acclamation and the great expectations, Cowen failed to fulfil his promise. The Leinster House cheerleaders who talked him up then are not doing it now.

The point of no return.

When that time comes, the mood changes and the chamber goes quiet. The air stiffens and stills as if people are holding their breath.

Politics is a publicly aggressive business with its consequent very public endings. Even so, there can be a strange sense of intrusion in the Dáil arena when a leader is toppled. It was there yesterday.

The public gallery was crowded for Leaders’ Questions, and the audience wasn’t your usual complement of ladies’ clubs and school tours either.

The party leaders filed into their places. When Cowen entered, the chatter stopped stone dead and the people in the gallery leaned forward for a better view.

The Fine Gael leader got to his feet and addressed the man whose job he wants. He reminded Cowen of the chaotic political events of the past week and told him that, by not calling an immediate election, he was clinging on to power at all costs.

Deputy Kenny wanted him to bring forward that budget to next week, offering to facilitate extended sittings of the House if that would help.

In the normal scheme of things, the old Biffo would have dismissed Inda out of hand. Instead, he struck a conciliatory note.

“I know there are some who genuinely feel we should have an election at this time,” he conceded, while pointing out that he couldn’t accede to his request because the timeline has already been set out.

“I’m not questioning your offer to be constructive,” he said to Kenny at one point, who seemed slightly thrown by this passivity.

Enda made a half-hearted attempted to attack the Taoiseach’s “erstwhile friends” in the Green Party. Not one Fianna Fáil backbencher heckled him. It’s not so long since they took perverse pleasure in taunting the Fine Gael leader, but they were too busy looking worried.

All they were missing was a big sign over their heads saying: “The End is Nigh.”

Is it really coming to an end? Well, not until February at the earliest, said Biffo. He was talking about an election. A few hours later, the whispered word from his party was that they will help him bring in that budget but show him the door by Christmas.

Eamon Gilmore picked up where Kenny left off. Caretaker Cowen was just as helpful to him. The Labour leader managed a few half-hearted thumps, but his heart didn’t seem in it either.

Some observers were of the opinion that Leaders’ Questions was subdued because it was being broadcast live internationally and the deputies didn’t want to make a show of themselves in front of the neighbours. That wasn’t the reason. It was Cowen’s human predicament that hushed them all.

He perked up a little during the Order of Business during some exchanges with Joan Burton. “Try to rein her in now and again,” he spat at her leader, Eamon Gilmore. As Joan looked highly offended, and Fine Gael’s Lucinda Creighton called for an apology on her behalf, Biffo looked up to the press gallery for approval. Nearly all the journalists were female.

He looked down again as Mary Coughlan whispered urgently in his ear. “I apologise for that remark,” he said to Joan. In fact, he apologised twice.

He just can’t do anything right.

By the way, speaking of our international TV neighbours, the hordes on Kildare Street got an unexpected treat when the exotic Jackie Healy-Rae appeared among them. The journalists and camera crews surrounded his taxi as Jackie got out with his little wheelie case and cap.

“Mr Healy-Rae, what can you tell us of the situation,” pleaded a chap from the Beeb. “I tell oo I’ve just come up from the bogs of South Kerry,” declared Jackie, and the hacks fell over each other to record him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen . . . Sure oo probably know more than me!” They thought they had died and gone to heaven.

Later in the day, a large group of visitors in the bar with Cork FF TD Michael Moynihan erupted into cheers when Bertie Ahern rambled in. The night ended with the parliamentary party meeting. For once, Brian Cowen did not do a barnstorming speech.

And to add insult to injury, this year’s Cairde Fáil dinner – tickets for this glamfest were like gold dust in Bertie’s day – was cancelled. It never rains . . .