Dail Sketch: What with being booed at the Special Olympics and booed again at last weekend's Dublin-Derry match, it must have come as a relief to the Taoiseach to be back again yesterday in the relative safety of the Dáil.
After all, with a grand total of 37 TDs present for Leaders' Questions in the House, there was little chance of Bertie being drowned out by the catcalls and hollers of the Opposition.
Even so, the Taoiseach was looking his most put-upon as he parried the efforts of the Fine Gael and Labour leaders to poke around in the entrails of Justice Feargus Flood's departure.
How world-weary he looks these days as he runs through the briefs prepared for him by civil servants.
His finger following the line of print, he reads the chronologies of meetings in a weary monotone, neither delivering stresses (in his voice) nor showing stress (in his manner).
You remember then - it's easy to forget - that he's been Taoiseach for six years (the anniversary was last Thursday, but did anyone remember?) He started the job coping with a tribunal crisis and, since then, dealing with occasional bouts of Flood-ing has become second nature to him.
It being close to the end of the Dáil term, there are more guillotines around Leinster House this week than there were in revolutionary France. However, Bertie wasn't going to be caught in any traps.
So when Pat Rabbitte bewailed the "appalling vista" of the taxpayer ending up having to pay Ray Burke's €10.5 million legal bill, Bertie simply retorted that the Labour leader "didn't listen to much that I said".
And then carried on regardless.
Tripping occasionally on a word and confusing "costs" with "fees", he left the Opposition more confused than before with his "will-he-or-won't-he" account of Justice Flood's willingness to deal with the legal bills.
Beside him, a sparsely-occupied front bench was filled in timely fashion by Minister Dermot Ahern, who has filed a €269,000 legal bill after his one-day appearance in Dublin Castle in 1999.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny pointed out that Judge Alan Mahon, the incoming chair of TTFKAF (The Tribunal Formerly Known as Flood), would have to read 37,000 pages of transcripts before he could properly adjudicate on the costs issue.
Mr Rabbitte wondered if the remaining judges in the planning tribunal could in future sit "in parallel", but Leaders' Questions was up before the Taoiseach's could say "boo" to this novel sitting arrangement.
