Poor Bertie's fall provides a litle light relief in dark day for Fianna Fáil, writes Miriam Lord
THE OAPS put their foot down. Brian Cowen climbed down. Bertie Ahern fell down. Mary Harney tried to calm them down. Fine Gael put a motion down. And after all that, everyone needed a lie down.
Which means they'll be fresh and ready for the fray today, when Fianna Fáil backbenchers face their worst nightmare: waves of belligerent pensioners marching on the Dáil in protest at the Government.
They're dreading it. Then there's the former taoiseach.
The brother Maurice sniffed ruefully on radio the other day that if Bertie were still in power, the medical card debacle would never have happened.
As it is, Bertie will be qualified and able to take his place among the retired and the lame today, waving his crutches with the best of them.
He has broken his leg. Needless to say, once the news broke in Leinster House, the jokes started.
How did it happen?
He was upstairs in St Luke's when he saw Michael Wall coming up to the front door carrying a bulging briefcase, and ran down the stairs so quickly that he lost his footing.
When he went to the Mater Private to get a plaster cast on his leg, guess the doctor's name? That's right, it was Paddy. Paddy the Plasterer. And did he jump, or was he pushed?
Bertie, we hear, is in plaster up to his knee. If he walks among the OAPs tomorrow, he'll besieged by admirers asking to sign it. Although, judging by the sulphurous mood among the elderly medical-card holders who packed out St Andrew's Church in Westland Row yesterday morning, even Bertie's stock has plummeted.
They met after Brian Cowen's snap decision to convene a press conference just after breakfast to announce details of his climb-down over the medical cards. The announcement did little to assuage the anger of the pensioners.
For them now, it's a case of "universality" or nothing. In the course of a few strange weeks, the population has taken to discussing solvency, liquidity and universality like it was the most normal thing in the world to do.
The press conference was a downbeat affair, after a shambles of a week saw Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan go from being the heroes of the midnight hour during the banking crisis to the Bungle Brothers of Irish Politics.
If the Taoiseach, his Health Minister Mary Harney and Green leader, John Gormley thought that their significantly revised medical card scheme for the over-70s would get them out of hot water, they were mistaken.
Junior Minister John Moloney discovered this to his cost when he was dispatched to calm the furious pensioners at their meeting in Westland Row church. It was to have taken place in a nearby hotel, but such was the crowd, they had to change venue.
And so, to add to the Government's misery, they were faced with the bizarre spectacle of a church full of raging OAPs, booing one of their Ministers off the altar.
That scene will go down in history. Or maybe not. Wait until we see what happens today.
But back to yesterday's light relief. It would have been provided by Jackie Healy Rae, who gave a most entertaining press conference on the plinth explaining why he would now continue to support the Government despite the medical card debacle.
"It's sorted now. The people of Kerry have nothing to worry about," soothed Jackie. As far as he was concerned, all of his constituents would be covered by the much higher eligibility threshold. It might be a problem for some people up in Dublin , but not where he comes from.
"We have nothing down in South Kerry only bogs and turf and rushes," he declared. Nobody believed a word, but it sounded lovely.
Meanwhile, the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party had met and had its ears soundly boxed by Biffo. Deputies crept outside, keeping a wary eye out for members of the media. None of them wanted to be seen talking to a journalist.
They were already shell-shocked after the weekend back in the constituencies.
Yesterday, the sight and sound of the pensioners singing We Shall Overcome put the fear of God into them.
Good old Bertie saved the day.
It may sound callous (it's all the rage in Government, if the Opposition is to be believed) but news of the former taoiseach falling down the stairs and breaking his day was treated with a certain amount of levity. Once, of course, it was ascertained that poor Bertie was not in any danger.
The information about what actually happened to him was scant. As evening gave way to night, reporters worked feverishly to try and uncover the circumstances surrounding his accident. It didn't help that the brief statement issued by his office was very short of detail.
Depending on who was canvassed, the Bertie either broke his leg at his home in Beresford, Drumcondra, or in his office, St Luke's. St Luke's was the scene according to a party spokesman. One of his brothers said he thought it happened at his home.
Then the plot thickened when it emerged that the former taoiseach may have spent the later part of last weekend at a luxury hotel in the west of Ireland. Enquiries to sources close to Bertie would neither confirm nor deny this but they did say he attended the Mater Private (good pension) and he broke his leg.
This lack of clarity bug seems to have invaded every part of Fianna Fáil. It makes people suspicious, and they start to ask questions and read things into situations they shouldn't.
This is what has the pensioners in such a tizzy. They suspect, with the new measures to be introduced, that their medical card eligibility thresholds will be lowered, year on year, by a needy Government.
It's like the last decade or so never happened. We've back to the days of briefings on the plinth from a party elder, assuring the media that all is well within the ranks. This time, instead of The Yellow Rose of Finglas - the late Jim Tunney - we have his constituency successor, Pat Carey. He's more mellow prose than yellow rose.
Then there's the return of dragging in the lame and the infirm for important votes. In 1983, Fianna Fáil's Seamus Kirk was brought from his sickbed for a leadership vote, and Dick Spring once struggled in on crutches.
Today, Bertie will hobble in to vote against Fine Gael's motion to restore medical cards to all the over 70s. Unless the pain gets too much, or the OAPs hold him hostage.
Lucky him, if that's the case. Then, unlike his colleagues, he won't have to endure the embarrassment.
Enda Kenny said yesterday that the budget is now becoming "a discussion document". As Cowen legged it to China, hoping to catch a slow boat on the way home, the prospect of more climb-downs looks certain.
Fine Gael's Charlie Flanagan summed up the situation: "It's the politics of headless chickens."
And the pensioners are out to pluck a few today.