NOBODY can accuse Democratic Left of forgetting its humble origins. There wasn't room to swing a cat at the party's manifesto presentation yesterday, but then the Monster Raving Loony Party could have filled the tiny hotel room chosen for the event.
They could have found a smaller venue, but it would probably have had to be a lift. Not even during his internment days in the Curragh in the 1950s can Proinsias De Rossa have experienced such cramped, inhumane conditions which journalists covering the launch had to endure.
The venue was in keeping with the general tenor of the event. The manifesto was predictably low on gloss and high on economy, with room for only two thirds of Mr De Rossa's face in the photograph on the cover. Tea and coffee were provided for those attending, but there were no biscuits.
DL has clearly been crippled by the outlay on Mr De Rossa's new tie - an investment this reporter rather rashly called for a few days ago - but the tie looked well yesterday, and the extraordinarily good relations between the Government parties was evident in the attractive blue shirt the party leader chose for the occasion.
Since there wasn't room for anybody else to turn the pages of their copies, Mr De Rossa went through the document's main points, while an audience already bludgeoned by too many other manifestos listened politely. Crack accountants can possibly explain the differences between the parties' various tax policies, but many of those covering this soporific election campaign are doing well if they can remember what day it is.
Predictably, things livened up a little when it came to the question and answer session. Far from disagreeing with a suggestion that he wanted to "demonise" the Progressive Democrats, Mr De Rossa seemed positively to embrace it.
He warmed to the theme of how the hated PDs planned to "abolish" the social welfare system. He repeated his charge that the logic of their combined cuts in the social insurance take and increases in the pension would be the meanstesting of all pensioners.
When a questioner asked if DL favoured a policy of seeking tax clearance certificates from TDs, the top table experienced a collective loss of hearing and asked if it was "TDs or PDs" the questioner had said. Warming to the theme of tax evasion, Pat Rabbitte vowed there would be no more amnesties as long as DL had anything to say about it.
Prompted by a suggestion that perhaps a high profile Lester Piggott like example was needed here, he even regaled the attendance with one of his favourite old jokes: that if Lester had been done for tax evasion here, he'd have ended up in the Seanad rather than in jail.
In a tongue in cheek reference to Dick Spring's manifesto gaffe of the day before, another questioner asked Mr De Rossa which of the Tanaiste's "two positions" on defamation law reform he agreed with.
Mr De Rossa smiled an indulgent smile, but the memory of his own High Court trauma of recent months is still too fresh for a choice between the Tanaiste's pro and anti stances to be anything other than a painful dilemma.
In the event, he equivocated gamely and came down squarely in the middle.
