Dáil Sketch/Marie O'Halloran:Socialist Party deputy Joe Higgins stands out in the Dáil in many respects. His is a one-TD party. He is a witty contributor. He is the designated speaker for the independent deputies on Leaders' Questions in the technical group.
But, perhaps most significantly, he is the one deputy who really gets under the skin of fellow socialist Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. And yesterday it happened in style. The Taoiseach lost his cool with the Kerryman in a blistering attack, calling him a "failed person" with a nitwit's philosophy.
And Bertie uttered the immortal line: "Now, go away."
Maybe Labour leader Pat Rabbitte softened the ground for the socialist when he highlighted the reported €25 million settlement with Revenue by the Bailey brothers' company Bovale.
Deputy Rabbitte made several references to the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway races and its visitors. In fact if Fianna Fáil was paid for every Opposition reference to that famous tent, the party would probably not require any other donations. Joe Higgins would become a major donor as he probably holds the record for most references to the tent.
Pat Rabbitte asked what the Taoiseach was going to do since they were FF members.
Bertie pointed out that most deputies were not against wealth creators but against tax evasion, and he coolly suggested that the last list of Revenue settlements might be interesting "as well as helpful in terms of highlighting some of the political affiliations of the people listed".
Joe was outraged at the €300,000 increase in Dublin house prices over the past decade. That was €30,000 a year or the "current average industrial wage each year for 10 years".
"This happened on your watch," he accused. In fact it went back to "the devil's pact made between Fianna Fáil and house-builders and speculators in the 1960s". The builders bought councillors and corrupted planning, he said.
He claimed the builders bought Charles Haughey, whom the Taoiseach "eulogised unstintingly last Friday".
"The VIP pen in Donnycarney church was like a major house-builders' convention. Oddly enough, the politicians were probably the poorest people there, with the exception of some of your colleagues who are publicans, landlords or dabblers in hairdressing salons in Moscow for the Russian nouveau riche."
But Bertie had had enough. In a staunch defence of the Government's record, he let fly.
"You would love to bring us back to the pathetic poverty when de Valera and Lemass built social houses, when no other houses were being built." That was the "great tradition you and your merry warriors want to bring back too".
And he taunted: "You have a failed ideology and the most hopeless policy pursued by any nitwit. You're a failed person who was rejected, and whose political philosophy has been rejected. You will not pull people back into the failed old policies you dreamed up in south Kerry when you were a young fellow. Now, go away."
Unfortunately for Bertie, he won't.