The peace process appeared to have taken a dramatic new twist yesterday when a Fianna Fail TD expressed frustration that citizens from the Republic could not vote in a British election.
But former party treasurer Sean Fleming was not talking about politics. He was complaining about the State's disenfranchisement from the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary Big Brother, which is making waves on both sides of the Irish Sea after the eviction from the house of "Nasty" Nick Batemen.
Branded "the most hated man in Britain" by the tabloids, Bateman was kicked out for manipulating the in-house voting which provides a weekly shortlist of two from which viewers choose who next to evict.
He is receiving advice from publicist Max Clifford, who said he could make "up to a million pounds" in the next year. "If he's as devious and ruthless as he comes across, there's a career for him in PR or politics, obviously", said Clifford.
Bateman is already a political issue here, with Sean Fleming calling for Irish television to produce its own version of the show to counter Channel 4's huge ratings boost and redress what he sees as a democratic deficit.
"The whole country has been gripped by Big Brother and yet nobody can even vote on who gets evicted because only British phone numbers can be used. It's extremely frustrating, particularly because two of its stars are Irish. I'm calling on the Irish stations to rise to the challenge and prove we can do it as well."
Dubliner Anna Nolan, a former Loreto novice who left when she "started to have crushes on fellow nuns", is favourite to win the £70,000 sterling prize as the last survivor in the house. This despite being branded "sneaky" by one newspaper for trying to oust fellow Irish tenant, Tyrone man Thomas McDermott. Six housemates remain after last night's eviction by viewers of Nichola.
Meanwhile, facing the media yesterday, Nasty Nick (32) claimed he was "just an ordinary guy" who had been misunderstood. Nearly 24 hours after the former Lloyd's broker left the sealed-off Big Brother house in east London, he told journalists: "I haven't committed a murder, it's a very small error. I was playing to participate and people thought I was playing to win."
Winning in spite of himself, Bateman last night signed an exclusive deal with the Sun. The paper - which ran a "Kick Out Nick" campaign - begins serialising his story on Monday.