Dáil Sketch/Miriam Lord:Strikes breaking out all over the place and Eamon Gilmore hinting that the Taoiseach's pay increase is the reason.
There are threats of power cuts and salmonella sandwiches with the festive sherry this Christmas.
There's a pipe band and hundreds of people from Sligo, Donegal and Leitrim howling in protest outside the gates of Leinster House - health service problems again.
Not the best of news on the dig-out front coming from Dublin Castle, and another embarrassing tribunal appearance is looming.
No manager for the soccer team yet. Off the drink for November. Impoverished.
Bertie would have been entitled to look a bit down in the mouth yesterday. Under the circumstances, he seemed in remarkably good spirits.
He must have known Deputy Martin Mansergh was in his corner, preparing to mount a robust defence of his Taoiseach. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, what could have been better? Around lunchtime, Martin issued a triumphant press statement which he believed would "put into perspective some of the recent controversy" over his dear leader's salary increase.
What Prof Mansergh did was submit a written question to the Tánaiste. He asked, going by the most recent figures, how many taxpayers returned incomes in excess of €300,000.
As a result of the statistics furnished to him, Fianna Fáil's pet intellectual was able to work out that 12,000-13,000 people will earn more than the Taoiseach in 2009. That's out of a workforce of over two million.
"They include, of course, a number of persons working at senior levels in the media, business people, professionals, and some higher paid GPs. A vast majority, though not all, would be in more secure employment," says Deputy Prof Mansergh.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
He hoped this would put the matter into perspective, unlike his boss, who had hoped to put the matter into the bin.
It's proving easier said than done for Bertie. The Opposition returned to his large salary again during Leaders' Questions. Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, was concerned about the increase in industrial unrest. He instanced a number of ongoing, high-profile disputes.
Did it ever occur to the Taoiseach that "the deteriorating industrial relations climate is not unrelated to a perception that Government itself is feathering its own nest with the pay increases it awarded itself in recent times?" wondered Eamon.
It's really, eh, striking that we've had such a spate of disputes lately. The timing of them is not unconnected to the fact the public think "the Government has been looking after itself", he mused.
Bertie disagreed, and explained why. As Ireland's union greats spun in their socialist graves, our three- hundred-grand-a-year Taoiseach invoked the spirit of Big Jim Larkin and the 1913 Lockout to defend his €38,000 pay hike.
"In some ways I wish you were right about some of these recent issues, that they were all only jumping up, unfortunately some of them are such long-playing records now that they wouldn't work on any of the modern technology to play records. The bus one has been on for ages, the ESB one has been on for several years, and as you said yourself, the Aer Lingus one has played out three or four times already, so these are not matters in it," he began.
"And I would always think, and always understand, that the rule that the trade union movement has stood by and fought for - as you'd know Deputy Gilmore, back in 1913 - that when an independent body makes a decision, the government of the day should pay it," concluded Bertie Ahern, fully paid-up member of the stricken proletariat.
What was it Big Jim said? Ah yes: "The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us (accept a massive big pay) rise."