Dail Sketch: With the Taoiseach transferring to the London stage, the Tánaiste was left yesterday as acting leader of the House. Not "acting" in the same sense as Mr Ahern, perhaps, and not "left" in the same sense either.
But in a bit of both senses, question-time gave her the perfect stage on which to reassert PD principles after the events of last week.
Sensing she might do just this, the Opposition was ready to widen any cracks that appeared in the politburo. So with a copy of the Goldman Sachs report in one hand and a crowbar in the other, Enda Kenny started by blaming the Government's "Fianna Fáil wing" for delaying a decision on Aer Lingus.
Probing further, he wondered if - given that the report made no suggestion of greed on the part of management - the Tánaiste supported the Taoiseach's "outburst" last week against Willie Walsh and his colleagues. The ruse didn't work. The PD leader had obviously been up all night with the Polyfilla, and any cracks that existed were well covered.
Management at Aer Lingus had done a great job, she said, and so had workers. As for Government, there had been no delay, beyond the proper consideration so great a decision merited. The Coalition's wings were operating in harmony, she insisted. Calm as a stewardess announcing that in-flight service would begin shortly, she said a consensus was "emerging" in the sub-committee, and the Cabinet crew would be coming down the aisle before Christmas with a selection of funding options.
Plan A thwarted, the Opposition switched the attack to overseas development aid. If they couldn't drive a wedge between the Coalition partners, they could at least drive one between the Government and Liz O'Donnell. Such is the gap that has opened up here, in fact, they could drive a bus through it.
When Trevor Sargent raised the issue, Ms O'Donnell smiled mysteriously, a bit like the Mona Lisa. But it was her party leader who was being painted into a corner.
Did the Tánaiste agree with her colleague that the Government had broken "a promise to the world's poor" in reneging on the 0.7 per cent GDP commitment, Mr Sargent asked. There was no easy answer to this question, and Ms Harney didn't attempt one.
As the master thespian himself would have done, she instead spoke at length of the enormous sums being contributed to ODA, even at the current percentage, thanks to the mushroom-like growth of GDP. In the same vein, she was able to contrast the puny amounts contributed by the Rainbow Coalition.
The Opposition hates having sand kicked in its face like this, and reacted as usual with a storm of heckles, none of them quite hitting the target.
Before you knew it, the allotted reply time was up, and the Tánaiste hadn't even mentioned Liz O'Donnell.
It was an assured performance by the Taoiseach's understudy, and it had Best Supporting Actor Award written all over it.
