Miriam Lord’s Week: Cabinet takes bonding trip to Lissadell

They’ll be in marvellous form by the time they get to Sligo, with nearly three hours of team bonding before the meeting proper begins.

It was Enda’s idea. No, not to go to Lissadell House but to herd all his Ministers onto a bus for their trip west on Wednesday.

We hear Cabinet members were absolutely delighted when he told them of his decision to get the loan of a coach from the army to take them all to Yeats country.

No exceptions, apparently.

Some Ministers may have been hoping to stick around for a few days and enjoy all the delights that Sligo has to offer. But no.

The Taoiseach has booked a return trip, so they’ll have to go straight home together on the Cabinet charabanc.

As a rule, Ministers don't tend to do public transport, although Joan Burton has been known to take the bus in from Cabra now and again.

One Cabinet member was overheard grumbling to a colleague: “I haven’t been on public transport since I was a student.”

Mind you, they all love the idea of communal travel when the vehicle is the minibus taking newly minted Ministers to Áras an Uachtaráin to collect their seals of office.

It looks good too.

But all the way to Sligo?

Enda, of course, will have been mindful of the spectacular own goal scored by Brian Cowen’s Cabinet in 2010 when they held a crisis meeting in Farmleigh House to discuss their savage, post-bailout budget.

As the country waited in dread of the imminent austerity plan, minister after minister swept up to the gates of the mansion in a procession of high-end Mercs and BMWs.

Kenny, then leader of the opposition, lacerated the government for behaving “like members of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy returning to the big house”.

We don't know what sort of vehicle will be supplied by the Defence Forces, although an armoured personnel carrier might be in order.

However, we understand that the travelling party’s main concern centres on the actual moment of their arrival at Lissadell.

This is because two Fine Gael TDs, John Perry and Tony McLoughlin, will be vying desperately for the honour of being the first local politician to manhandle them down the steps of the bus while extending an official welcome to Sligo.

Security experts have advised the Taoiseach to engage Roscommon TD Frankie Feighan (who won’t be running for re-election) to elbow Perry and McLoughlin out of the way if they turn nasty.

Frankie has form when it comes to defending his boss at close quarters.

The final Cabinet meeting of this term will also mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of WB Yeats, hence the Lissadell connection.

It’ll be like a school trip for them.

But who will sit where? Will Fine Gael sit on one side of the bus and Labour on the other? Will Joan sit next to Enda? Will Leo Varadkar and Alan Kelly grab the seats at the back and cause trouble?

Will there be a comfort stop along the way? Will James Reilly eat all his sweets the minute he sits down and be sick before they pass Chapelizod? Will Leo and Alan throw stuff at the Taoiseach and blame Paschal Donohoe? Will Paschal cry?

Will Heather Humphreys start the singing?

“Oh, the wheels of the state go round and round, round and round, round and round.”

Bring us back a stick of rock.

TDs in session during watered down protest

Wednesday night’s water protests outside Leinster House were a bit of a damp squib. It was hard to work out which crowd was the biggest – the protesters or the gardaí watching.

Still, it was considered a good day by the anti-water charges campaign after figures were released showing that fewer than half of Irish households had paid their first bill.

“They aren’t the anti-water crowd out there,”remarked one politician as he looked at the relatively small gathering.

“Those are the people who paid their bills and they’re protesting that they want their money back.”

But those activists who did muster at the barricades at the event organised by the Communities Against Water Charges group were as determined and forceful as ever.

They put in long hours, with people demonstrating in Molesworth Street and Merrion Street until well after 9pm.

Had they known, they might have been better off taking their protest to a nearby hostelry, where both Government parties were holding their end-of-term night out.

Fine Gael and Labour TDs, senators and staff held separate parties in Dan McGrattan’s bar, which is tucked away in a lane opposite Government buildings.

There wasn’t mixing between the Coalition partners, although we hear the Fine Gaelers were somewhat miffed because Labour had secured the barbecue area ahead of them.

Back in Leinster House, while their comrades kept up the good fight outside, some of the political leaders of the anti-water charges movement were also in party mode.

We know this because a number of Oireachtas members (from more than one party) felt obliged to fill us in on the details. Some were only short of live-blogging the occasion.

Enjoying a well-deserved end of session, er, session, was Socialist party TD Paul Murphy, who entertained a half- dozen or so guests – all men around his own age – at a table in the exclusive members’ restaurant.

Apparently, most of them had the prawn starter, which is always very popular with diners.

For main course, the choice of ribeye or sirloin was hard to overlook. Strawberries and cream was on for desert. And cake.

As our exciting bulletins from the dinner front came through, it was like we were there too. Bottles of wine were consumed. And there were Irish coffees after desert.

Paul's party colleagues, Ruth Coppinger and Joe Higgins, arrived in late to join the happy group, Joe carrying an enormous bundle of files.

He was probably doing some last-minute preparation for Bertie’s appearance at the Banking Inquiry the following day.

“Wouldn’t you think they’d at least send a slice of cake out to the barricades,” smirked a Government backbencher.

It doesn’t take much to amuse them.

Mattie happy to mix his drinks

TDs and Senators are wary of the Dáil bar these days.

Gerry Adams wants to see it closed down. And when Enda Kenny took over as Taoiseach, he issued instructions to his parliamentary party to behave themselves in the bar.

If they wanted to go drinking with colleagues, they should do it away from Leinster House.

The main parties have their own favourite haunts. Fianna Fáil politicians like to go to Doheny and Nesbitt; they also favour the Duke on Duke Street.

Labour’s people tend to congregate in Toners on Baggot Street.

Fine Gael’s current watering-hole of choice is the Ginger Man on Fenian Street, primarily because it’s Enda’s local when he’s in Dublin.

All these hostelries are within easy walking distance of Leinster House.

Sinn Féin’s representatives are not averse to the odd drop either. But they prefer to socialise away from the main political drag.

You can find them during the week in the D4 hotel in Ballsbridge, where most of them stay when the Dáil and Seanad are in session.

Now Mattie McGrath has entered this ordered little world. He’s been turning up of late at the Ginger Man – seemingly he performed a set dance for the Fine Gael regulars recently – and not everyone is pleased with his disregard for the social demarcation rules.

Happily for Mattie, not to mention the rest of the politicians, he wasn’t present when the Garda paid a routine visit to the premises during the week to check for after-hours activity.

All was in order and there were no “found ons” reported.