Dáil Sketch: The Minister for Agriculture usually has quite a sedating effect on the Opposition.
On the rare occasions Joe Walsh takes over the role of acting Taoiseach, it is almost like he had fired tranquilliser darts so relaxed is the response.
Apart from some light-hearted joshing, the Opposition benches don't take him on, even when he displays a less than sure-footed grasp of the brief.
Yesterday was different.
Any darts fired may have been intended as sedative but they acted like adrenaline, and particularly on the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte.
There were suggestions that other substances might have been involved.
The Fine Gael leader had attacked the Government's record, and spoke of the anger of the electorate at the doorstep.
When Mr Walsh responded that he too had been out on the hustings, and that the people he met were in a very buoyant mood, Labour deputy Michael D Higgins quipped: "What are they growing?"
But the Labour leader was in far from a buoyant mood. He was especially annoyed with the Minister's response to his question that he name the rural Garda stations and suburban legal centres the Minister for Justice said last week would be closing.
Rattling off the usual response he generated some laughter when he said that Garda strength was at an "all time high".
But when he suggested the deputy put down a specific parliamentary question, Deputy Rabbitte saw red.
However, when the Ceann Comhairle intervened, and told the Labour leader he had asked two questions and was only entitled to ask one, the deputy went apoplectic.
His running battle with Dr Rory O'Hanlon about Dáil procedures exploded into all-out war on Mr Rabbitte's part.
As his stunned party colleagues looked on in silence, Mr Rabbitte's colour rose, and he snarled with rage over the Ceann Comhairle's dealings with the Opposition.
Accusing him of partisanship and claiming he was "congenitally incapable of being fair", Mr Rabbitte said Dr O'Hanlon intervened at every opportunity to protect the Government.
The Ceann Comhairle stood up, and in his usual response to repeated challenges, stretched out his arm and waved his hand in a "sit down motion", calmly and repeatedly urging Mr Rabbitte to withdraw his remarks.
During the spat the Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, dared to venture a comment that Deputy Rabbitte was "losing it".
The Labour leader took a swipe at him. "I am not losing it, and I do not want any advice from the boot boy from Dundalk."
Mr Rabbitte then proceeded to, well, lose it. Eventually, after a short recess, he insisted he would not withdraw his comments, but instead withdrew himself from the Chamber.
