Opposition pleas for early recall fall on stony ground

Dail Sketch: If there's one thing the Opposition can't stand, it's a holiday.While the rest of us might look forward to three months off, the Opposition deputy dreads the summer recess like a condemned man dreads a trapdoor

.Every year at this time, there are harrowing scenes in the Dáil as TDs from all parties plead with the Government to spare them.

So it was yesterday. Facing the prospect of no Dáil sitting until the end of September, cold sweat formed on the brows of many and Fine Gael's Enda Kenny was the first to crack.

Please, please, he begged the Government, let us sit again next Tuesday as normal.

We'll be good this time.

More composed but equally grave-faced, Labour's Pat Rabbitte was next to try.

There were commentators who would criticise the house no matter what it did, he said, but in the interests of credibility, maybe the Government would at least concede an earlier resumption than September 30th.

"I suggest September 9th," he ventured gamely.

And so it went, with Dan Boyle of the Greens pointing out that Wednesday had marked only the 100th sitting of the current Dáil, an average "1½ days a week".

The house must sit for several weeks more, he urged, adding plaintively that it should also resume early on September 2nd.

If the Government had cancelled the summer holidays, clearly the Opposition would have hired an aircraft to fly over Leinster House with the banner: "Thank you, Bertie." But throughout all, Mary Harney - deputising on the Order of Business - sat stony-faced and unmoved. She had been equally unmoved by complaints about the use of the guillotine on last- day legislation.

But from the demeanour of those opposite, it would have been a mercy to use the guillotine on them as well.

In the face of such suffering, members of the media could not bear to look, as Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin rose to add Sinn Féin's desperate plea to all the others.

Perhaps sensing the futility of the exercise, he did not even mention dates, merely urging that the house sit for "the greater part of the year".

Ms Harney's response was to scoff heartlessly and even - how cruel can you be? - to suggest the Opposition was bluffing. But then she softened her manner and, in an attempt to comfort the afflicted, insisted most of them would be working all summer anyway.

"Very few politicians take more than two or three weeks holidays," she said, as Fianna Fail back-benchers shouted "hear, hear!" and looked accusingly at the press gallery.

It is a comment on life as a Government back-bencher that, a year on, the identities of many of the newer TDs are still known only to political specialists.

Less frequent visitors to the house must ask regularly: "Who's yer man there beside the other fella? Come to think of it, who's the other fella?"

It is a comment on Opposition life that Fine Gael, which was tabling an amendment to the effect that the house should meet next Tuesday, had to be reminded gently by the Ceann Comhairle that in the unlikely event of the Government's adjournment motion failing, the house would be sitting next Tuesday anyway.

Fine Gael's divisions are the subject of a current television series, but the truth is, the party's additions and subtractions are nearly as bad.

If nothing else, it can spend the three months working on their sums.