Dáil Sketch: The Opposition found out yesterday that nobody tells Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea what to do - not even the Taoiseach. The revelation came during a game attempt by the Green Party's John Gormley to embarrass the mighty Minister, writes Marie O'Halloran.
But corporal, or rather Gen O'Dea is not a target to be taken lightly. So the Green Party defence spokesman was on dangerous territory when he referred to the visit by the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Richard B Meyers, to Ireland.
"Is it not the case," asked the brave Deputy Gormley that "when Gen Meyers visited here you went off sick but visited a barracks", because of a warning of "possible embarrassment and unfavourable optics"?
But Mr O'Dea riposted that that was an "unworthy aspersion" from the deputy who was "implying that I feigned illness. I do not feign illness. I was visiting barracks in Athlone. I did not feel very well.
"The visit went on longer than I had anticipated and there was not sufficient time to travel to Dublin to keep the appointment with Gen Meyers, which I regretted and apologised for." And being a general in the political sense, he reminded the House that "there was no question of me being instructed to go missing. I do not go missing and I certainly don't take instructions to go missing from anybody, no matter who they are."
"Not even from the Taoiseach," asked Deputy Gormley.
"No," came the unequivocal answer, and the Opposition were all impressed by that. "I take no instructions of that nature from anybody."
Indeed, the House may have felt a song coming on when the Minister added that "I am who I am".
He reiterated that "I was genuinely ill on that day and genuinely sorry I could not meet Gen Meyers. There was no insult intended to Gen Meyers. I made that clear to his staff and the American embassy." Deputy Gormley said that Ireland was "hand in glove with the United States on military matters" and this was "confirmed almost every day in Shannon where we are complicit in this bloody war in Iraq which gets worse day by day. Our so-called neutrality is going out the window."
The general however complimented the Green Party man "on his wonderfully imaginative description", and insisted there was no complicity in the war in Iraq.