Missing socialist still at large in the House

Dáil Sketch: Thanks to Charlie McCreevy's weekend interview, there was no competition for the burning issue of the day. The commissioner's claim that there were only three genuine socialists in the Dáil - the Taoiseach, Joe Higgins, and an unnamed other - unleashed a frenzy of speculation in the corridors.

Not since Harry Lime faked his death in post-war Vienna has the identity of the third man caused so much intrigue.

Having battled so long together for such an unpopular cause, Bertie and Joe must have been hoping the new recruit would reveal himself, if only by a coded signal. After all, three TDs would be enough for a conspiracy. But they must have been disappointed when they scoured the benches for signs.

The red scare seemed to have had a particularly sobering effect on Labour. Despite a whopping 16 TDs turning out for Leaders' Questions - the best of all parties - the Labour contingent was conspicuously devoid of the colour of international Socialism. Even the law of averages should have yielded one or two examples: the Fine Gael front bench alone had Richard Bruton in a pink shirt, and Olwyn Enright in a sunset-coloured two-piece.

Instead it was as if the party of Connolly had banned any clothing that might associate it with McCreevy's smear. True, Pat Rabbitte almost used the c-word during his contribution - seizing on the case of the Latvian periwinkle-pickers as another example of the creation of a new "underclass" in Ireland. In similarly radical tones, he complained that many foreign domestics were "prisoners in the homes of the nouveau riche".

But just as Bertie and Joe's hopes must have been rising, Mr Rabbitte failed miserably to propose a tax on richesse, nouveau or otherwise, and the hopes were dashed.

There was a flurry of excitement when independent TD Jerry Cowley turned up for ministerial questions in a tie that was somewhere between scarlet and vermilion. Red scare doesn't describe it. But Mr Cowley's only reference to the class struggle was oblique, when he asked Mary Hanafin about funds for a school in Mayo.

In The Third Man, it was an affectionate cat curling up at Orson Welles's feet in a doorway that gave the game away. In the Dáil yesterday, the moment of enlightenment came when the Opposition started handing around a newspaper cutting with an advertisement featuring Ivor Callely. The Junior Minister was portrayed standing in O'Connell Street, Larkinesque, promising radical redistribution (albeit only of Dublin's traffic) before Christmas. He didn't need any cat. He looked so pleased, he could have curled up at his own feet.

Enda Kenny thought he was Ivor the Terrible for wasting taxpayers' money in self-promotion. Pat Rabbitte suggested the ad would be a precedent and that Dick Roche might be next promising free Christmas trees. But when Finian McGrath asked: "Is this the third man, Taoiseach?" Mr Ahern just smiled (conspiratorially).