Dáil Sketch: Leinster House often gets visits from school tours, but the group from Palmerstown Community School yesterday had come to protest.
"Bring him home" their posters demanded, in reference to fellow student Olunkunle Eluhanla, who was deported to Nigeria last week.
The picket got no nearer the Dáil than Molesworth Street, although it attracted endorsement from a number of politicians, including Sinn Féin's Aengus Ó Snodaigh, who condemned the Minister for Justice for abandoning the principle of "Ireland of the Welcomes".
Inside the House, Joe Higgins was preoccupied with a not dissimilar theme. Waving a payslip from the giant Turkish construction company, Gama, he accused the firm of gross exploitation of its fellow countrymen in this State.
Instead of extending Ireland's traditional hundred thousand welcomes, Gama was perpetrating "a grand larceny of workers' wages amounting to millions of euro each month", the Socialist TD claimed.
Deputising for the Taoiseach, Mary Harney assured Mr Higgins that the law protected foreign and Irish workers equally. She confirmed that the labour inspectorate was carrying out an inquiry into the case, and agreed it would be a "total disgrace" if workers had been exploited in this way.
Still broadly on the subject of welcomes, Enda Kenny raised the issue of how householders should greet burglars who visit their homes in the middle of the night.
The question arose in the context of a court case involving a Co Mayo farmer, the Fine Gael leader said.
But in general, he suggested, Irish law required homeowners to avoid confrontation with intruders, or where avoidance is impossible, to use the minimum necessary force.
"If a burglar has a baseball bat and a homeowner has a shotgun, the homeowner is expected to leave aside the shotgun, get a baseball bat and have an equal contest," was Mr Kenny's legal interpretation.
To unsolicited laughter from Opposition deputies, Ms Harney replied that the State currently enjoyed "a reforming Minister for Justice", who was constantly reviewing legislation. The Fine Gael leader countered that Mr McDowell was constantly making speeches and giving "soundbites". But the Tánaiste assured him that if changes were required, the Minister was open to suggestions.
Returning to the theme of the day, Mr Kenny also raised the plight of Shane McEntee, the newly-elected Fine Gael TD for Meath who, he said, was still without an office. The Nobber man is being given bureaucratic asylum in Leinster House by his party colleague and director of elections, Tom Hayes.
Ms Harney acknowledged that the possibility of permanent residency for Mr McEntee was being examined. There are apparently no plans to deport him back to Meath.