DAIL SKETCH / Marie O'Halloran: TDs were so rowdy in the Dáil yesterday it seemed they might have had too much sugar on their cereal. The hyper-ometers went skyrocketing from the moment Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny mentioned the danger phrase - "electronic voting".
The Taoiseach kept his head down, flicking through his notes while the electronic Minister, Martin Cullen, held his clasped hands up, almost in supplication.
Why weren't the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Ombudsman on the independent panel established to investigate the secrecy and accuracy of the new system, the Fine Gael leader demanded. Was it because they had concerns about an issue that had been "completely politicised"? Mr Ahern metaphorically "tut-tutted" and said he would not question the commission's integrity, and nobody should. He wanted the C & AG on the commission, but that would have been a conflict for the Comptroller, he said.
And he repeated for the nth time the success and integrity of the voting system and pointed out that it had been on the go for five years.
With Enda getting nowhere with the Taoiseach, he made a swipe at the Minister for the Environment, saying: "The best day in your life was the day you handed in your application form to the Fianna Fáil party after leaving the Progressive Democrats."
That got a response. "Maybe you should have done the same. You would be sitting over here and not in the wilderness."
When the Taoiseach said that he wanted to ask a question, the Opposition went into overdrive. "Come over here if you want to ask a question," said Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan from the Opposition "wilderness".
"Is somebody prepared to stand up and say that Fianna Fáil has manipulated this system or that it has changed the software to manipulate the vote," Bertie asked.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said that the answer to the Taoiseach's question was "yes, if you thought you'd get away with it".
But the high ground shifts fast. When Mr Rabbitte displayed a Kerry newspaper from 1982 with a picture of a "fresh-faced" John O'Donoghue, the Labour leader quoted that the Kerry TD wanted to implement the policy of decentralising the Department of Justice to Killarney.
Mr Ahern said it was good to see decentralisation being implemented, as up to 200 civil servants were in the Department of Justice in Killarney.
To much laughter, Mr O'Donoghue quipped to Mr Rabbitte: "I will appoint you as my election agent, next time."