Some of the Shinner lads down the back were skitting and sniggering and throwing little jibes at Heather Humphreys, who was standing in for the Taoiseach at Leaders’ Questions.
Honest to God, but Sinn Féin is looking more and more like a party of Government as the year goes on.
To prove our point, their leader was just back from a photoshoot in Lansdowne Road where she met and posed for pictures with a host of Irish rugby legends, including Brian O’Driscoll. That’s right – BOD.
Stick that in yer Coalition pipes, Micheál and Leo!
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If the developers and tech moguls manage to expedite their gentrification of Dublin’s inner city, then Mary Lou McDonald will have bagged some lovely snaps from Aviva Stadium for her general election literature.
And while her nearby constituency of Dublin Central isn’t exactly a rugby stronghold, the trip to Dublin 4’s rugby mecca will have made a nice change from white collar boxing nights on the northside. Who knows, she might even have scouted out a potential Sinn Féin councillor or two among the high achievers at the gig.
It was all in a good cause. The Sinn Féin leader was delighted to join the celebs waving off former Ireland rugby captain Rory Best at the start of his 330km Rory’s Miles to Mayo charity walk across Ireland to the village of Cong on the Mayo-Galway border.
Former taoiseach, Fine Gael leader and Mayo man Enda Kenny was also there, in flying form and fearlessly play-thumping rugby players on the back and in the biceps.
Rory, who will pass through Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Tipperary, Limerick, Clare and Galway before arriving at his destination on May 25th is hoping to raise €2 million for Cancer Fund for Children and its new Daisy Lodge support centre on the shores of Lough Corrib.
Meanwhile, Mary Lou returned to face Heather in the Tuesday line-out as the Taoiseach was in Iceland (the country, not the supermarket) and Micheál was washing his hair, or something. He made it into the chamber a short time later for questions to the Minister for Defence.
Deputy McDonald returned to food price inflation for a second week because she felt her questions on the issue were not sufficiently addressed the first time around while promises by the Government to act swiftly against profiteering retail grocers amounted to nothing.
The Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise and Trade with responsibility for the sector was supposed to be “preparing a dossier on price gouging” and “confronting” the retailers with it at a crisis meeting, but it never happened, she told stand-in Heather.
Publish that dossier immediately, demanded Mary Lou.
Neale Richmond, of dossier fame, sat in the row behind the Minister with arms folded and a thunderous face.
So once again, what is the Government going to do to get to grips with the gougers?
Asking such a question of a minister for social protection is always a bit of a risk because they know all about extra allowances and tax cuts, social welfare increases, once-off lump sums and targeted payments. They can quote the figures at will and frequently do.
Heather heartily agreed that food prices had gone up and anybody going in to do their weekly shop could see this clearly. “I can see it myself. I was in a shop only yesterday and I could see where the price of various different items have gone up. And even the price of nappy wipes, they’ve gone up as well.”
Nappy wipes? They were probably the ones for the Cabinet.
Although Heather is also a very proud and hands-on grandmother to baby Arthur, the apple of her eye.
Simon Harris, sitting next to his ministerial colleague with his head tilted and that very solicitous gentleman-in-waiting expression on his face, almost cracked a smile. His lower lip trembled slightly but he quickly reknitted his brows and returned to nodding seriously at whatever she was saying.
The Sinn Féin boys near the back of the hall smirked uncontrollably at the mention of “nappy wipes”. The words made them giddy, though the smirking was not confined to just one side of the House.
While recognising that the cost of the weekly shop had increased and people were paying more for less in their baskets, the Minister for Social Protection was not going to let Deputy McDonald away with giving the impression that the Government was doing nothing about it.
Heather put on her departmental hat and set off at a jaunty clip around the selected highlights of the payments and allowances she has sanctioned over the past two years.
“We have provided billions of euro in support,” she began, diving into the detail with relish. “Only a couple of weeks ago, my department issued a further €200 lump sum payment to our pensioners, to our carers, to people on disability payments and to those on the working family payment.”
Mary Lou settled into her resting what’s-that-got-to-do-with-the-price-of-turnips face. Understandable, in the circumstances.
“And as you know,” Heather reminded her, “I’m the Minister for Social Protection and my priority is to… and that is why we had the double payment… and it is also why we extended…. and increased… largest since 2000.”
She was on a roll now. “You know, you have to ask yourself sometimes, deputy: who pays for this?”
Mary Lou looked up and removed her specs. All ears.
“And I’ll tell you who pays for it. The workers of this country… The people who get up every day to do their day’s work… the same people you forget about when you come in here and you’re calling for more spending here and more spending there.”
Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy shook his head and laughed. “You’re answering the wrong question,” he shouted.
“And I want to support the people who pay for everything,” continued the Minister, to the nodding agreement of her engrossed gentleman-in-waiting.
Across the floor, it was Dessie Ellis’s turn to lose patience.
“Price gouging,” he roared at the Minister.
“I’m getting around to that.”
Which she eventually did, mighty proud at the way the Coalition got the big guns out to put the wind up the big supermarket chains. “But I can tell you. Deputy Neale Richmond met all the retailers, he got them into a room…”
“Wow!” interjected Matt Carthy, with exquisite timing.
And what happened after this explosive intervention by the author of the Richmond dossier (as yet unpublished)? “All of a sudden” some supermarkets are cutting their prices and some have cut the price of bread.
“Sure that happened before the meeting,” scoffed Matt’s colleague, Lorraine O’Reilly.
And the price of butter.
“What about the nappy wipes?” whooped Mark Ward as his comrades sitting near the back went into paroxysms.
Well. Heather wasn’t going to have them boys skittin’ over that.
The accent went full Monaghan.
“Ye might laugh. Ye might laugh but if you’re a woman or if you’re a grandmother like me you know why you’re buyin’ nappy wipes. You need them if you have a small child and I think the woman who is getting the extra €100 next month in their child benefit payment, they might appreciate it.”
The lads piped down.
“So don’t be laughin’ at that!”
“Hear hear,” went the line of Coalition juniors behind her. Humphreys was clearly vexed.
“No,” she said to herself. “No.”
An enraptured Simon Harris nodded approvingly, a study in devotion.
Main thing is, everything is going to be okay, going forward.
“Minister Coveney is considering a suite of measures.”
