Dáil Sketch: Willie O'Dea padded down the steps, grey of quiff and liberally bristled, radiating the quiet menace of a moderately riled yard-brush, Miriam Lord writes.
The Opposition began to snigger.
"Oh, here he comes. Here comes Dirty Harry," trilled Finian McGrath from the ranks of the Independents.
Fluffy Harry, more like.
The matter at hand was very serious - the ongoing problem of violent incidents in certain Limerick suburbs. The Minister for Defence settled into his front-bench seat and listened to Enda Kenny outlining the latest outrage.
Five-year-old Jordan Crawford was shot and wounded as he stood outside his home on Sunday evening. "Gunned down in a war that has exploded on your watch," thundered the Fine Gael leader.
This was as good a time as any to resurrect Michael McDowell's unfortunate wasp, a humble-winged creature who could teach a thing or two about dying to the stars of Swan Lake. In the same way as no Dáil debate about crime in Limerick is complete without jokes at the expense of local deputy O'Dea; no discussion of gangland crime is complete without a reference to Mr McDowell's declaration, many murders ago, that the latest killing represented "the last sting of a dying wasp". "Some Sting. Some wasp," said Enda.
"Rapes, murders, stabbings and beatings are now an everyday part of Irish life - city and country," trembled the leader of the Law and Order Party, lacing each word with dollops of Blueshirt relish.
The Taoiseach replied by praising the decent people who live in these benighted housing estates, and then listed the efforts made by his Government to beef up Garda numbers and throw money at the problem.
The chamber was on a knife-edge. The gangs of Leinster House faced each other across the floor. It was Willie O'Dea's face that was causing most upset.
"You can smirk if you like," huffed Enda at the Minister for Defence, after he had rounded on the Government for failing to protect its citizens.
This is unfair to Mr O'Dea, who confidently wears a moustache that wouldn't look out of place in a fancy dress shop. This often leads members of the Opposition to mistakenly suppose that Willie is making faces at them, when in truth he could be chewing a live squirrel for sport and they wouldn't know it.
Faced with Willie's magnificent bristles, Enda Kenny couldn't concentrate on the gangland situation in Limerick. "Smirk . . . Smirk at that if you want, Willie." Enda said he couldn't believe his ears when the Minister said on radio that no democratic government could prevent crime.
Fluffy Harry began to lose his cool. He leaned forward and let fly. "Do you know how stupid you sound? Do you know how thick you sound?" he began to shout, as gang warfare broke out.
"Ask Michael Noonan to talk to you," he goaded, in a reference to Fine Gael's long-serving TD for Limerick.
"Mighty Mouse," chortled Labour's Pat Rabbitte, as Fluffy Harry tried to make the Ceann Comhairle's day by shouting Enda down. The chair vowed he would take action if the Minister didn't calm down.
"Can you send him to Duffy's Circus?" wondered Fine Gael's Jim O'Keeffe.
The gloves were off. When the coalition was in government, they put the gangland bosses out of business and behind bars, declared Enda.
"And yis were kicked out!" whooped Fianna Fáil backbencher Johnny Brady. "Take control of the area," urged his Fine Gael colleague in Meath, Shane McEntee.
"You can't take control of your own little village," sneered Johnny, as we wondered what goes on in Nobber of an evening.
"You have no village," retorted Shane.
There was a deputation in from the Greek parliament. Bewildered.