Enda and Joan shuffle with cards close to chests but can they let Garth play?

Enda and Joan are playing their cards very close to their chests. “Snap!”

The days are long in Government Buildings. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste have to find ways to fill the time between torturing no-hopers with delusions of a junior ministry. Always a great laugh.

As their deliberations continue on a revised Programme for Government and new Cabinet line-up, even the most dedicated anoraks in Leinster House are fed up making reshuffle predictions.

And while all this is going on, an American country singer has the country in convulsions. Garth Brooks’ personal decision to cancel all five concerts he was due to play here because the council wouldn’t let two of them go ahead, even made it to Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil.

Mind you, in a cloying statement yesterday, Garth’s position curiously shifted to having been “informed” of the cancellations. “I cannot begin to tell you how badly my heart is breaking,” he wrote.

In his missive, the singer managed a feat which the Fianna Fáil coalition tried, but failed abysmally, to achieve in the dying days of their doomed administration.

Back then, agriculture minister Brendan Smith came up with an idea to help the Irish people in their hour of economic need: free cheese. They threw it back in his face.

But now Garth comes along and smothers the suffering multitudes in transatlantic cheese and they love him all the more.

Cheesy expert

He also made an indirect plea to Enda – who can do cheesy with the best of them. Garth still wants to perform. In fact if “the ‘powers that be’ in Ireland can fix this” then he’ll turn up and sing.

Apparently, he watched Monday's meeting of Dublin City Council online. Seriously.

What can Enda do? He is preoccupied with his reshuffle and repositioning the Government. But could he, would he, really miss the opportunity to ride to the rescue of all those bereft country music fans all over the country, and beyond?

Meanwhile in Drumcondra, in a four-bedroomed detached house with a conservatory and exquisite soft furnishings (we've seen the receipts), Bertie Ahern grinds his teeth and curses cruel fate.

He waits by the phone. It doesn’t ring.

Bertie knows what people are saying. He knows what Enda is thinking. Joan, probably, too.

“What would Bertie do?”

Because, you see, they both know that The Man They Call Aherrin would never have allowed the Brooks fiasco to spiral out of control and upset hundreds of thousands of Irish mammies and men with John Wayne complexes.

He would have allowed it, but only to be able to step in at the last minute and broker a solution agreeable to all.

The gratitude! The tears! The adulation! The votes!

If Bertie was still around, he’d have knocked those bandwagon jumpers from Sinn Féin into a cocked Stetson by now. He’d be buying Brooks a pint in Fagan’s prior to the country singer beginning a record-breaking two month residency beneath Hill 16.

Yet he sits in Beresford, waiting for the call. He realises there is no point in relying on Enda or Joan – they’ve taken their eye off the ball because of a tiresome reshuffle that nobody outside of Kildare Street gives a fig about. (Except, perhaps, Paschal Donohoe’s ma).

But The Bert will have reluctantly approved of Micheál Martin’s performance during Leaders’ Questions (always knew the cute Cork hoor was after his job) when he demanded the Government take action to save Ireland from itself and restore the cancelled concerts.

"It is not beyond the capacity of the Oireachtas to pass emergency legislation, if necessary," said Micheál, begging the Taoiseach to interfere in local planning.

It’s what Fianna Fáil would do, presumably. (Interesting to discover what constitutes an emergency in Martin’s book.)

In doing this, Enda would also “give a clear signal that, in view of our current financial circumstances, we need to engage with major economic projects of this kind in a hands-on way.”

Business always triumphs over planning. Bertie also understands this.

The Taoiseach expressed his “disappointment” that Brooks won’t be playing five nights on the trot in Croke Park.

“Deputy Martin knows the position. Let us suppose the Government decided to intervene by emergency legislation. First of all, we would be accused of doing down the rights of residents – who have rights. Second, we would be accused of interfering on top of a planning process that the city council has a duty and responsibility to deal with.”

One can imagine the hollow laughter ringing around Beresford at this sympathetic but realistic approach from the Taoiseach. It’s no way for Enda to earn his spurs with voters.

What would Bertie do?

“This morning, I signed an order to redesignate Ballybough as the Las Vegas of the northside, with full planning and windfall profits for everyone who matters and knock-on temporary employment for the locals.

"Garrit Bruce will play every night until September. He will be followed by that wonderful chartreuse, Saline Dijon who starred in the record-breaking Lusistania. Brendan McArdle of Mother Browne's Boys has been signed up for the Christmas season."

The ball’s in your court, Enda. Do the right thing.