Deputies queue to carve up sorry Lenihan

Dáil Sketch: The Government was expected to face a Dáil roasting in the ongoing aftermath of the aviation revolution announced on Wednesday night.

However, the only basting that really went on was the persistent opposition effort to sear the hapless and absent Minister of State Conor Lenihan over his "stick to the kebabs" remark, for which he had already apologised in the Dáil on Wednesday.

The only real fire in the aviation row came from Labour TD Tommy Broughan who was disgusted at his "northside Taoiseach" who had committed "treason" in agreeing to the "despicable" Aer Lingus privatisation.

Through it all Ceann Comhairle Dr Rory O'Hanlon rebuffed the onslaught of Opposition deputies who used various, even devious, guises to raise the kebabs issue, which was deemed out of order.

Labour chief whip Emmet Stagg questioned whether the Ceann Comhairle was "practising what he preaches" on Dáil procedure relating to TDs making personal statements.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, never shy to confront the Ceann Comhairle on standing orders, claimed that Mr Lenihan was allowed to "sneak" into the House to give an apology, which Deputy Stagg said he was not entitled to do.

Next into the fray was Labour's Joan Burton who asked how appropriate it was for a minister with responsibility for overseas development "lecturing the country on the need for good government in Third World countries when he cannot show good behaviour himself".

Dr O'Hanlon said that the Minister had "put a disclaimer on the record yesterday and that must be accepted".

Dan Boyle of the Greens took a more devious route. Mentioning the Defamation Bill, he asked when it was likely to be introduced and "will it cover racial slurs made by members of the Government?"

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen adroitly avoided that with a comment that until the Government decided on the issue he could not indicate what the Bill would or would not include.

But Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, at whom the offending kebab remark had originally been aimed, hit home with a culinary strike. His efforts to fight for exploited Turkish workers now extends, tongue-in-cheek, to saving one of their national dishes.

In reference to The Irish Times front-page cartoon on the issue, he said that "if newspaper cartoonists keep showing us the hapless Minister of State with responsibility for development aid . . . protruding from a kebab on the roasting spit, collective nausea among the population will cause a collapse in trade for honest kebab sellers in this country".

When the Ceann Comhairle reminded him to ask an appropriate question, he said that "I am sure the Minister of State must shudder at what cartoonists would have done if he had advised me to stick with lettuce as well as the kebab".

The mind boggles.