After three months ensconced with their cherished grassroots, the TDs returned to Leinster House yesterday as dejected as juveniles on their first day back at school.
Thank heavens for the fruity hues of the women TDs' outfits, which glowed through the half-light of a miserable autumn day. Mary O'Rourke was in crushed raspberry; Mary Hanafin in pert lemon; Jan O'Sullivan in cherry red; Cecelia Keaveney in bold strawberry and Monica Barnes in lime green. Nora Owen's suit hinted of spice.
But, what is this before the Ceann Comhairle? A little screen.
Eight years after Dail business was first televised, computer technology arrived in the chamber.
Gone are the days when paper notes passed to and fro between the Ceann Comhairle and the Clerk. Now advice and information can be provided instantly by the Clerk as business proceeds - to the Ceann Comhairle's desk behind him.
In order to allow rural Deputies time to travel to Dublin business opened at 2.30 p.m., with questions to the Taoiseach.
They argued the toss for 40 minutes on whether the country should be divided into sub-regions in its quest for structural or cohesion funding.
Was it desirable, asked Ruairi Quinn, to set urban poor against rural poor?
Bizarrely, though Bertie Ahern had apparently prepared reams of replies to the anticipated host of questions on Northern Ireland, none was pursued by the opposition.
No probing on decommissioning, no scrutiny of SDLP-Ulster Unionist differences over cross-border bodies. It was a bit of a doddle, Taoiseach's Question Time.
Later on when the Leas Ceann Comhairle, Dr Rory O'Hanlon (Ardal's father), took the chair, Mr Quinn led the Father Ted chant, "Ah, go on, go on, go on" when he attempted to limit Pat Rabbitte.
Not an easy job. Though the spectre of the tribunals was not raised during the day, Mr Rabbitte managed to ask the Taoiseach if he had given any thought to the appointment of the next Euro Commissioner.
"It won't be you anyway, Pat," shouted a Fianna Fail TD.
As expected, in the late afternoon John Bruton sought to move the writ for the Cork South Central by-election. He and the other opposition politicians wanted the vote to take place on a Friday, not Thursday October 22nd as the government planned.
The Taoiseach explained that advice from Cork strongly suggested the by-election would conflict with the Cork Jazz Festival.
The Jazz Festival? So, what's the problem? Surely the organisers of the election know that most politicians have a brass neck, never stop blowing their own trumpets and, when in government at any rate, rarely sing the blues.
