DAIL SKETCH/Frank McNally: It's the 10th anniversary of a certain controversial but best-selling record, as you'll have heard, and the renewed debate over whether a woman's heart has the special properties claimed in the song spilled over into the Dáil yesterday.
Labour TD Willie Penrose conducted a fact-finding cardiac examination on the Minister for Social and Family Affairs and concluded that her organ was (1) "big" and (2) "in the right place".
He didn't suggest there was anything unusual about it, implying his own heart was of roughly similar size and location. But if he needed a transplant and the choice of donors was Ms Coughlan and the Minister for Finance, Mr Penrose implied, only a woman's heart would do.
The Labour man doubted Mr McCreevy had a heart at all, but if he had, it was "in a different place" from theirs. So Mr Penrose was appealing to Ms Coughlan for a pre-Budget cardiovascular alliance.
If she would ask Mr McCreevy for 10 per cent of his €500 million capital gains tax windfall to reverse the cuts in the social welfare estimates, he said, the opposition would support her.
Ms Coughlan's heart may have skipped a beat at the compliments, but luckily her mind took over at this point. She declined the opportunity to offer public advice to Mr McCreevy and suggested the opposition's help was unnecessary.
"The proof of the pudding will be in the eating," she said, not giving anything away, but clearly confident that the Minister for Finance might.
Earlier, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin had been in the middle of attacking the Taoiseach over the "16 savage cutbacks" when Mr Ahern suddenly announced another.
Addressing the Sinn Féin TD as "Deputy Caoláin", he provoked an indignant outburst from the former over his habit of omitting the "Ó".
This was one cutback that the Taoiseach could not stand over, and he was forced into an embarrassing U-turn, thereby restoring the Monaghan TD to full length.
Enda Kenny was more worried about inflation. In a question that sounded like one of the Taoiseach's answers, he recited a litany of increased charges.
But the Budget loomed over everything else. And appealing for a late change of heart on the cutbacks in the Community Employment Scheme, Joe Higgins cited the effect of those cuts on one Dublin suburb where everything from "Irish dancing" to "playschools" to "services for the disabled" were being cancelled due to the imminent closure of the community centre. The suburb was Hartstown.
You couldn't get away from it yesterday. Unfortunately, Mr McCreevy was not present to hear about the plight of Hartstown, or Mary Coughlan's heart. But the Donegal woman may be hoping the appeals have softened his arteries, anyway.