Knock-about TDs set for yellow cards

THE FAMOUS five-a-side boys – we first introduced you to them in this column back in June – have been ruminating again and the Taoiseach is unhappy. He’d be far more pleased if they lived up to their name and ran off their excess energy by playing some football.

Enda is probably also a bit peeved because one of their favourite haunts is the Merrion Hotel’s Cellar Bar, which is just across the road from Government Buildings. The bar was also popular with the Mutterers who launched an unsuccessful heave against Kenny in 2010.

This loose grouping of backbench FG TDs apparently has eight members, although that seems to be a moveable feast. This eight wrote to the Irish Examiner recently challenging the Government’s position on the Croke Park agreement.

Retribution, it was rumoured around Leinster House, would be swift. The dreaded dawn summons to Enda’s office, and all that. As it turned out, the Taoiseach had other fish to fry; they were ordered to see the Chief Whip Paul Kehoe.

Paul gave them a bit of a talking to, while his second in command, greyhound fancier and Clare TD Joe Carey, looked on.

The five-a-side lads were highly amused.

However, we hear that the Taoiseach isn’t finished with them. As one Kenny loyalist put it: “The mother and father of dressing downs is being reserved for the ringleaders.” With Enda now suffering the bailout blues following his EU summit embarrassment, he’ll not be in the best of form.

Dublin South East’s Eoghan Murphy will be bracing himself for an onslaught, so.