Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our unemployed sons . . .
We may be living in difficult times, but introducing internment as a means of taking people off the unemployment registers sounds like a step too far.
During Thursday’s debate on the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh tabled an amendment on the proposed National Internship Scheme.
It was discussed by deputies, to the growing amusement of Ó Snodaigh and a party colleague sitting behind him.
“It has been an interesting debate,” said Ó Snodaigh. “I learned a little more than I knew previously. It was interesting to hear interns being called internees. As far as I am aware, there is only one internee and he is sitting behind me in the chamber.”
“Didn’t he do well?” retorted Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton.
“Look where he is now,” added the Labour Party backbencher Colm Keaveney.
Ó Snodaigh could not disagree.
“Didn’t he do well?” he repeated. “He served a very interesting internship. Like interns, internees have very few rights as well . . .”
Behind him, his party leader, Gerry Adams, beamed, as befits a man who has done well for himself.
Or perhaps he was just delighted to have been in the chamber to witness the rare occurrence of Ó Snodaigh making a joke.
