For some years, the Margin has suspected that our Government ministers had very little to do with the speeches they delivered on public occasions. This column was wrong, and would like to apologise for its occasional sneering tone when dealing with this question.

The evidence comes from a speech last Thursday by the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Mr McDaid. Addressing the Dublin Institute of Technology, which has just opened a tourism research centre, the Minister said he wanted to offer "a small personal gripe".

"I know we are the greatest tea drinkers in the world," the Minister told the gathering, "but some of us are not the best tea makers. I am sure that - like me - you have found that tea served in some of our hotels is tasteless and simply not up to the mark. It is surprising that so many Irish people working in sophisticated catering establishments seem to have forgotten one fact they surely learnt at their mother's knee. It is that you cannot make acceptable tea unless the water is actually boiling."

Let the record show that this part of his speech was typed up in advance and was in the official script. While it could have been written by a technocrat, it bears all the hallmarks of being penned by a man who has sipped too many cups of tea in too many hotels.