DAIL SKETCH/Frank McNally: It was a great day for Irish sport, as John O'Donoghue said, but it was not such a good one for sport in England.
So even as it celebrated the birth of a new national stadium at Lansdowne Road, the Dáil spared a thought for events at Old Trafford, where football is now being played in the shadow of the Two Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The birth of the stadium was certainly a happy occasion, if slightly confusing. The supposed parents - the FAI and the IRFU - both attended the delivery, as Dr O'Donoghue slapped their joint proposal on the bottom and declared it healthy.
Bertie Ahern was not at Government Buildings for the announcement, but then the event had a certain sensitivity. His bowl was finally being taken off the table, and if the new Lansdowne is hardly a saucer, the image of the PDs as cats that got the cream was persistent. When Mr O'Donoghue cautioned against interpreting the decision as a defeat for anyone and praised Mr Ahern as the greatest Taoiseach sport ever had, it sounded like the bit in the All-Ireland speech where the Kerry captain demands three cheers for the gallant Dublin team - "Hip, hip". Next door, in Leinster House, Joe Higgins asked Mr Ahern if it was true Lansdowne had just been given the go-ahead, and did this mean the Taoiseach had finally recovered from "Ceausescu Syndrome".
The man who first diagnosed the condition was sitting close by when the Taoiseach inadvertently confirmed that, yes, the "Minister for Justice" had announced plans for the new stadium. Nervous laughter all round.
A question remaining was what would happen to J.P. McManus's fifty million. Mr O'Donoghue assumed the offer had lapsed with the Abbotstown plan, but quipped that "all donations gratefully accepted" remained the Government position.
Maybe Rock of Gibraltar will make a contribution instead. In the meantime, Pat Rabbitte saw the Rock-related crisis at Man United as an opportunity to return to a favourite theme, the Government's tax break for stallions' fees.
So lucrative was this business that the world's biggest soccer club was now "apparently intent on destroying itself" over the issue, he lamented. A horse! A Horse! Their kingdom for a horse.
As a committed Man United fan, the Taoiseach shared his (mock) pain. But it was to be hoped that a club with "the Tricolour over its ground" would resolve its difficulties - he added, with the philosophical tone of a man who understands the problems caused by slow stadiums and fast horses.