Jellies and parties grab TDs' attention but press lie in wait for Taoiseach

SKETCH:WHAT CAN be more important than Europe? It was mid-morning, and the Taoiseach rose to make his big statement on the recent European summit.

“I am pleased to have the opportunity to brief the House on what was a very significant meeting for Europe and for Ireland . . .” The chamber was silent as Enda delivered his speech to a spellbound audience of three.

Where was everybody? Busy in their offices but listening to him on their monitors? That’s the usual response.

It appears not.

Outside Leinster House, the place was buzzing. There was a giddiness in the air.

Deputies rushed up and down the plinth, a great sense of purpose about them. Rock music blared from a huge mobile studio parked across the road on Molesworth Street.

“The FM104 Roadhog,” explained a passing civil servant. “They’re giving out free pens and packets of jellies.”

Streams of TDs and Senators made their way towards the source of the music, which brought them in turn to Buswell’s Hotel and “Independents Day”. And then the penny dropped. The Independent Broadcasters of Ireland were launching a policy document on funding for the sector – this was about local radio.

Politicians are besotted with their local radio stations. They crave time on the airwaves. Adore the exposure.

This was one gig they couldn’t ignore. Except that at the same time, in a building on the Leinster House campus, the postmasters were holding a briefing on the future sustainability of post offices. The TDs can’t be falling out with the post offices either. Hotbeds of constituency gossip. A few carefully placed words from the local postmistress could cause untold damage to a political career.

So understandably, deputies were run ragged between these two crucial events.

Nonetheless, quite a lot of them appeared to be missing.

“Stuffing their faces with hot dogs and working it off on the bouncy castles,” remarked a Government backbencher.

Come again? “They’re up in the Phoenix Park at Ambassador Rooney’s Fourth of July party. There’s American football and everything.” It was all a bit mad yesterday.

Then the Dublin Rose, Arlene O’Neill from Lucan, appeared on the plinth in the company of her local TD, Derek Keating. Photographs were taken and they were about to move off when the Minister for the Environment beetled over at considerable speed. He was prevailed upon to have his photograph taken with the extremely pretty Dublin Rose. He didn’t take much persuading.

The last we saw of Big Phil, he was trying to negotiate the revolving door but couldn’t get his cheesy grin through the gap.

A crowd began to gather next door at the National Library. Word came through that Enda was expected. The journalists descended in the hope of getting a few words.

There was also the irresistible lure of the launch of a report from The Forum on Philandering. Or was it Philanthropy?

Eventually, he arrived with his handlers in tow, barrelling up the entranceway into a rapidly oncoming band of reporters and camera crews.

It all became rather fraught.

“Hold the line! Hold the line!” somebody shouted, but to no avail. “Step back! Step back!” shouted a handler.

Enda was quickly surrounded as he tried to shoot through a narrow opening between the wall and the media. He stepped backwards in the face of the onslaught, then tried a quick sidestep to the right. But he nearly fell into a large flowerpot. Then he stumbled over a tripod on the ground beside it but held his feet.

This, however, resulted in a wheeling of the scrum.

“Can we have a bit of decorum now?” pleaded an official, while Enda hammed up his startled expression.

Music blared from the FM 104 Roadhog across the road. Adele. Rolling in the Deep. Enda was rolling in the maul.

Big Phil, for he had reappeared to help the Taoiseach launch the Philanthropy Report, watched from the safety of the nearby steps. Another huge grin on his face.

Eventually, things settled down to a minimum of pushing and the Taoiseach was asked about his views on gay marriage.

After more sidestepping – this time of the verbal variety – he kicked to touch and cantered away for a photocall with winsome fiddle-toting tots.

But his handlers fumed in the aftermath. Some muttered about “an assault” on their boss. Although nobody laid a hand on the Taoiseach.

It was just a case of argy-bargy in the lineout because the handlers came out without their whips and chairs.

The sooner the Dáil rises for the summer, the better.