Coalition set to hurl caution to the wind

COALITION HARMONY is set to take a ferocious battering on Tuesday evening when Fine Gael’s parliamentarians take on Labour in a hurling challenge.

Enda and Eamon’s show of brotherly love during the launch of the Government’s annual review will be a distant memory by the time the parties finish hacking lumps out of each other.

The grudge match takes place at the Clanna Gael Fontenoy grounds in Ringsend. Mycro Sportsgear have agreed to provide sliotars and helmets while Clanna Gael will lay on soup and sandwiches. Trying to keep the peace will be Conor Dodd, a Dublin county referee.

“We’re thinking of playing seven a side for 15 minutes with unlimited substitutions,” Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer tells us.

Sounds like a recipe for chaos.

“They may be our partners in Government, but we’ve every intention of beating them off the pitch on Tuesday,” promises Labour’s Ged Nash. Or Clash of the Nash, as he is now known. “Whatever the result, I will demand a return soccer match, for us working-class TDs more used to playing the garrison game.” Labour – “Gael Uí Chonghaile” – is pulling out all the stops. They have even shelled out on a new red and white team strip: the crest has crossed hurleys on a background of red flags, one featuring a rose, the other a starry plough.

Fine Gael will not be wearing blue shirts as might have been expected; they will be wearing the maroon strip of Bishopstown GAA club, borrowed by deputy Buttimer. Their status as the main Coalition party is reflected in the numbers expected to line out: Butsy will be joined by deputies Paudie Coffey, Martin Heydon, Brendan Griffin, John Paul Phelan, Noel Harrington, Derek Keating, Paul Connaughton, Tony Lawlor, Pat Deering, Pat O’Neill, Damien English, Joe McHugh and senator Tom Sheahan. They reckon their star player will be Eileen Geary – a Leinster House staff member and camogie powerhouse.

Meanwhile Jed will be hoping more parliamentarians will join up. Deputies Michael McNamara, Arthur Spring and Alan Kelly have signed up, plus Senator James Heffernan. David Leach, the party’s political director, is taking managerial responsibility with deputy Kevin Humphries. When all the blood is cleaned up, the Leinster House hurlers hope to have raised a tidy sum for Cork’s Marymount Hospice.