It is not often you see a Government Minister take a lunge at someone. But last night the Minister for the Environment and Rural Development, Mr Dempsey, got carried away with the bluster of it all. Launching himself across the lobby of the Great Southern in Galway he grabbed RTE's Jim Fahy and tried to drag him away from the Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrat presidential candidate, Prof Mary McAleese. It was great television but not great public relations.
Why are you acting like this, reporters asked Prof McAleese and the team of media handlers-turned-rugby-forwards who surrounded her. She did not answer. Mr Dempsey accused us of launching an assault on the presidential candidate.
Reporters who had been shoved out of the candidate's way as she smiled grimly into the television camera wondered what the former journalist thought of the heavy-gang tactics.
It had all been going so well until then. Another set piece with a grassroots rally for the popular presidential candidate. A piper waited to play O'Neill's March as she made her triumphant way into a ballroom full of supporters.
A press conference had been scheduled but this was to be left until after the rally. When she arrived O'Neill's March was lost in the din of McAleese's Charge.
They manhandled her through the press pack and into an ante room. And while the candidate composed herself, outside they straightened their clothes and glowered.
In the ballroom she stood between the PDs' Bobby Molloy and Fianna Fail's Eamon O Cuiv, a picture of happiness supported literally by both Government parties.
She smiled serenely at the display of Irish dancing to taped accordion music, while the bard read a poem of welcome.
Bobby Molloy gave a fire and brimstone speech against the "evil-minded people" who were trying to blacken the candidate's name. He spoke darkly about feeling as a PD member that there were "people amongst us" who supported other candidates and were sinking to underhand tactics.
A Minister of State, Mr Noel Treacy, added his thunder: "There are those with blatant agendas with hidden schemes to try and destroy the opportunity for Ireland that is Mary McAleese."
There was standing room only and the crowd loved it. Mr O Cuiv spoke of the "people who take risks" as the "easy targets."
"Prof McAleese took risks. She took risks for peace. If we're going to criticise people who worked behind the scenes building bridges then I think this country has gone wrong."
The candidate gave her usual hustings speech, telling the audience that she had saved that speech for them. Another local anecdote was pulled Haughey-like from a hat and the honeyed speech about the modern phenomenon that is Ireland flowed.
When she finally spoke to the media, Prof McAleese suggested we all sit down and watch her on the Late Late Show if we wanted answers to the questions. "Absolutely comprehensively," was how she had dealt with the issue she said, repeating the phrase.
"I've explained it comprehensively and I've no intention of explaining it any further."
With the word comprehensively used as comprehensively as she could her tones relaxed again when she spoke of the "warm welcome" in the city of tribes.
Asked why she refused to speak to the media before the rally, she said: " I wasn't at all unwilling to speak to you on the way in. You know perfectly well what happened on the way in. We were late, extremely late, and I had a lot of people here to whom I had to give a priority."
The media tribe tried for another question but the handlers said enough was enough. There was flesh to be pressed, flowers to be accepted and smiling photo opportunities to be given.
