A beano of self-congratulation marks the TDs' end of term

Like a firing squad shooting blanks, the Opposition parties went through the motions in the Dail, knowing there was no prospect of inflicting any serious wounds on the Government. The leader of Fine Gael, John Bruton, admitted as much when he said the motion of no confidence was simply a "gesture" and he knew it would fail.

Clearly feeling unthreatened, the Fianna Fail TDs seemed almost giddy, delighted they had made it to the last day after recent traumas. The noise generally emanating from the Government benches meant the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was a few minutes into his speech before he could be heard. All over the State this week there were similar scenes in national schools as children held their end-of-term parties. All that was missing here were the bottles of orange and packets of crisps.

The Taoiseach said he was glad to reaffirm the success of the Government as it completed its third year, a sentiment echoed by other Government ministers and TDs throughout the day.

He spoke about the achievements in Northern Ireland, the massive drop in unemployment, tax relief to PAYE workers, money for the health services, infrastructural changes planned under the National Development Plan and the "unprecedented health of the public finances".

The Opposition, he said, would tend to claim that every advance owed nothing to this Government, whereas every problem unsolved was the fault of the Government. "That sounds fair to me," quipped the leader of the Labour Party, Ruairi Quinn.

During Mr Ahern's speech there were many jibes about forgetfulness and amnesia following his performance at the Moriarty tribunal on Thursday, with the Fine Gael TD Michael Finucane at one point advising that he might consider taking St John's Wort.

Mr Bruton said he was struck by how well the Taoiseach appeared able to remember events that affected other people in the past, which contrasted with his "very poor memory" of things that had happened involving himself in 1996. Mr Ahern, who had been keeping his head down and leaving the heckling to his TDs, shot back at the Fine Gael leader: "Like you over Cllr Morrissey and the casino money."

Mr Bruton took up a GUBU theme which he cleverly developed and it went down a treat with his own party. He had to turn to his backbenchers at one point, appearing to quietly tell them that it was all very well for the Fianna Failers to be rowdy but that didn't mean they should be doing the same.

"It is bizarre that we have a Fianna Fail party still in office that could select Ray Burke to be Foreign Minister, Deputy Denis Foley as its senior representative on a Dail committee to maintain financial probity, Deputy Liam Lawlor as its representative on a Dail committee on political ethics, and bizarre that it would elect Deputy John Ellis as its nominee to head a Dail committee to protect the financial interests of farmers."

The result of the no-confidence motion may have been a foregone conclusion, but Mr Quinn said the events of recent weeks meant they would have been in dereliction of their duty if they had not tabled the motion.

In a spot-on prediction early in the day Mr Quinn said there would be a lot of hot air expelled in the chamber during the 6 1/2 hours of debate. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, summed it up when she admonished the Opposition for not being polite enough to stay quiet and listen to her, since, as she pointed out to them, she had done so for their "claptrap".

In the end it was just as the Government had been privately saying when the motion was tabled - it went nowhere, with Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats being able to leave Leinster House after a day of listing their achievements and looking more united than they have for weeks.