DAIL SKETCH:FINE GAEL'S new finance spokesman was checking out the front bench.

Literally. It is a long eight years since Michael Noonan sat on his party’s front row in the Dáil. And yesterday for the first time since 2002, he took his place at the far end of the bench as Dáil business got under way. He sat there for just a few minutes, a serene smile on his face. But it was enough time to hear the banter between the Minister for Justice and a Fine Gael frontbench stalwart.

Dermot Ahern, who was introducing his Bill to ban the sale of psychoactive substances in head shops, congratulated Alan Shatter on his move to the justice portfolio and said, straight-faced, that he looked forward to “the same level of co-operation” that he had with his predecessor Charlie Flanagan. Fine Gael’s James Reilly translated the remarks of the bootboy Minister who denies being a bootboy: “By co-operation, I think the Minister means skin and hair flying.”

Noonan quietly left shortly after the Minister launched into the detail of the Bill. When it was the new Fine Gael justice spokesman’s turn to speak, he gave a clear indication of the “co-operation” the Minister could expect. He started nicely enough, thanking the Minister for his good wishes and hoping they could co-operate. His definition of co-operation: the Minister should take on board their “constructive amendments”, and support Fine Gael’s private members’ Bills. The last time that happened, God was a boy.

The friendly air was never to last and by the time Shatter sat down the country was so crime-ridden it was “starting to resemble Chicago during prohibition time in the 1920s”. Much discussion on head shops followed, Mary O’Rourke calling their opening a “wave of evil and a lust for money”.

The second piece of legislation up was the dog breeding Bill. There was no friendly banter at all for John Gormley from his opposite number Phil Hogan. The only dog cliche he didn’t use was the “tail wagging the dog”. But he criticised the Minister for straying a little bit “as most dogs do from time to time” into areas that are none of his business. “He couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.” Despite the Minister’s warnings to him not to “push the puns too far”, the Fine Gael man was on a bit of a roll. The Minister had to give the sleeping dog “a good kick” to include the greyhound industry in his Bill.

When the Minister said he had to go to the Seanad, which was dealing with the Wildlife Bill, and offered his apologies, Fine Gael’s James Bannon said he had “gone with his tail between his legs”.

Labour’s Ciaran Lynch could not resist the animal cliches either but compared the Minister to a different animal. In accepting amendments “the hare has been truly turned and there has been a climbdown by the Minister”.