Lightning quip steals Rabbitte's thunder

Dáil Sketch: When they heard themselves called the "three wise men" yesterday, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Arts, Sport, and Tourism could not have mistaken it for a compliment. The context was their role as trio of directors in the National Aquatic Centre, so the intent was clearly sarcastic. But given that project's troubled history, the Opposition might have done better to dub them the three little pigs.

After all, to date, the NAC has sprung a leak and had its roof blown off. Whatever about the building itself, the company operating it was made of straw, a point underlined by this week's court order declaring the 30-year lease forfeit. So when the Opposition started huffing and puffing around the structure yesterday, Bertie Ahern must have feared the worst.

There was no big bad wolf in the Dáil; only a big, bad Rabbitte. But as the Taoiseach knows well, the Labour leader's lung-power is considerable. Sure enough, he blew up a storm about a venture he claimed was, from the start, "haunted by bad judgment, bad decision-making, bad building, and bad administration".

That the shelf-company given the lease had no assets and hardly any capital was remarkable enough, he said. But when the company then secretly transferred the lease to a businessman "well known to attend the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway races", it only added to the scandal.

Unlike the aquatic centre, and contrary to the moral of a certain fairy tale, the Fianna Fáil tent has proved the most durable of structures. No doubt what it lacks in building material, it makes up for in builders. Besides, as the Opposition would claim, all the wolves are inside already.

But mention of the tent yesterday gave the Taoiseach an escape route. First, in a diversionary tactic, he was able to report that the businessman in question was not a Fianna Fáil supporter, and Mr Rabbitte would have "to look elsewhere in this house" for the man's allegiance. Then he suggested Labour's attitude to the NAC was part of a wider antipathy to a sports-loving Government. "They were against everything we did in sport," said Bertie. Mr Rabbitte countered deftly that it was the current Minister for Justice, Law Reform, and Abject Apologies who had been the loudest critic of Abbotstown. Whereupon the Taoiseach, even more deftly, said that, yes, Mr McDowell had "called me Ceaucescu". But he added that, unlike others, "I didn't jump up looking for an apology".

Sitting nearby and taking advantage of the confusion, the third little pig was busy lighting a fire under the Big Bad Rabbitte. "You'd be a lot closer to Ceaucescu than the Taoiseach ever was, Pat - that's a well-known fact!" said John O'Donoghue.

The smell of singed Rabbitte fur permeated the chamber and with one porcine leap, our heroes were free.