Relief was written all over the faces of the Cabinet Ministers present when the Dáil met yesterday morning. Word had reached Leinster House of agreement in principle in the Bus Éireann dispute.

Government backbenchers looked happy. Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar and Minister of State Alan Kelly looked particularly happy.

Varadkar and Kelly had already issued a statement welcoming the proposed deal for the €5 million in savings. Varadkar had some words with Kelly on the Government benches.

Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher was not happy. The reason for his angst was the report on hospital reorganisation issued by the Government earlier this week. It was not exactly earth-shattering, he said, adding that there was no commitment to securing the future of small hospitals.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, who was taking Opposition Leaders' Questions, must have been intensely happy that the breakdown of the Bus Éireann talks was not first item on the agenda, as it would have been had the result of the marathon industrial relations session been different.

Gilmore goes into detail
It might have been the reason for the very long brief he read from by way of an initial reply to Kelleher's question. No detail was omitted as he claimed that the proposals were the most fundamental reform of the Irish acute hospital system in decades.

And so he read on and on, to the point where some TDs were visibly numb. There was a hum of conversation from some of the Opposition benches. Government TDs looked as if they were participating in a marathon.

Labour’s Emmet Stagg could not conceal his glee as he looked in the direction of Kelleher who, whatever else, could not complain about the level of detail in the reply.

“Deputy Kelleher should put that in his pipe and smoke it,” said Stagg.

Kelleher claimed that Gilmore’s reply was clearly at variance with what he had stated about small hospitals prior to the last election.

Gilmore, lengthy brief discarded, rounded on his Fianna Fáil accuser. “Our hospital services were a mess before the last election,” he said.

He added that Fianna Fáil had plenty of money to deal with reform of the hospitals in the 14 years it was in government and did not do so.

Kelleher advised Gilmore to leave the “14 years” comment behind him. The advice went unheeded. The political past is not a foreign country to the Coalition.

Gilmore said Kelleher should not “try to scratch around hospital reports” to find something in desperation to criticise.

Government backbenchers, awake from the coma induced by the initial long reply, cheered Gilmore on as he went for the jugular. Kelleher, he said, had been right to be broadly supportive of the report when it was published on Tuesday.

Kelleher’s Fianna Fáil colleague Barry Cowen was also awake. “We are entitled to read it,” he said.

But the Government could not be rattled. The buses were running, after all.