Dáil Sketch: Charlie McCreevy was a non-starter at Leinster House for the latest running of the Leader's Questions Handicap Chase. Perhaps connections were unwilling to risk him in advance of tomorrow's feature event - the Grand National Book of Estimates - or maybe they were put off by the rain. The Minister is a proven fast-track performer, after all, a point the Opposition was anxious to discuss yesterday.
Mr McCreevy's dazzling performance at Punchestown in October 2001 was the subject of a late steward's inquiry called by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny. There was no questioning the quality of the spectacle itself - in which Mr McCreevy broke the fast-track record to land the €14.8 million agriculture event centre, by a neck. Caps had been thrown in the air at the time - the State's spending cap among them - in the excitement. But two years later, Mr Kenny was taking a more sober view.
Condemning what he called "this secret deal", the Fine Gael leader contrasted Punchestown's easy access to resources with the struggles of small boxing and football clubs "to raise a few lousy euro". In the week the Estimates would be published, Mr McCreevy's parsimony towards others differed starkly from his attitude to "the horsey set", said an indignant Mr Kenny. So indignant was he that he accused the Taoiseach and Tánaiste of standing idly by "like Bonnie and Clyde, watching the public purse being plundered".
Mr Ahern let him away with his dramatic revisionism of bank-robber history. And less like a Clyde than a Clydesdale, the Taoiseach defended Mr McCreevy's commitment to stable finances (as it were) with a steady if unspectacular performance. First he plodded through a litany of dates on which the Punchestown investment had been debated in the Oireachtas. Then he suggested the move had been warmly welcomed by the Opposition. Hopes had even been expressed of similar funding for the "Clones Greyhound Track", he said, cunningly reminding the house that not all the Government's four-legged friends were horses.
Pat Rabbitte confined himself to declaring the Punchestown deal a "ready-up". He was more concerned yesterday with predicting doom for Ireland's regional airports after the break-up of Aer Rianta. We waited for him to name the four horsey-men of this Apocalypse, a line-up in which Mr McCreevy was sure to feature. But it was the jockey-sized Seamus Brennan who suffered the brunt of the criticism, and the Minister for Finance's opposition to the Aer Rianta plan was a stick with which to beat him. Not even the Cabinet's extensive travels to the provinces in recent years could reassure the Opposition about the Government's commitment to regional airports.
Finally, racing news just in. Mr McCreevy is a confirmed runner for tomorrow's feature event at the Department of Finance, when there is expected to be a cut in the ground, and cuts everywhere else as well.
