One must assume that the topic of conversation that dominated the President, Mrs Robinson's dinner for the new Cabinet in the Aras on Tuesday was the events in Dublin Castle that very day. The 15 Ministers, plus the others who sit at the Cabinet table - chief whip Seamus Brennan, super junior Bobby Molloy and AG David Byrne - were invited with their spouses or partners to mark their ascent to power. It is the third time the President has given such a dinner - first in 1992 when FF and Labour joined forces and then again in 1994 when the Rainbow was formed. On Tuesday the Ministers came straight from an all-day Cabinet meeting which discussed our first autumn budget. Up at the Aras the Ministers and partners were joined over dinner by the secretary to the Government, Frank Murray, the secretary to the Department of the Taoiseach, Paddy Teahon, Peter Ryan, secretary to the President, Colm Butler, deputy secretary and Bride Rosney, Mrs Robinson's adviser. Annette Andrews, wife of the Minister for Defence, played the piano after dinner, as she has done on previous such occasions; Brian Cowen told amusing stories, Michael Woods sang and Bobby Molloy sang the song he sang in the same place for de Valera 27 years ago - The Butcher Boy.