Healy delighted to face the music

Over the decades the Leinster House plinth has seen all manner of human dramas unfold. Yesterday, however, was probably the first time it played host to a squeeze-box, tin whistle and the singing of rebel songs when a little bit of Tipperary came to the capital.

Surrounded by more than 70 of his supporters, Independent TD Mr Seamus Healy made a memorable arrival for his first day in the Dail.

Stepping off two coaches in Kildare Street, the group made its way through the Dail gate and on to the plinth where the impromptu music took place, bringing a slightly surreal air to proceedings.

"Who's in the House?" asked the big white banner they were carrying, with the reply: "Healy's in the House."

Father and son, Mr Tom Stafford and Mr Ross Stafford, from Clonmel, combining squeeze-box and tin whistle, began a rendition of that quintessential Tipperary song Sliabh na mBan, with the group quickly joining in.

It was followed by an old rebel song, Tipperary So Far Away. However, the first verse of the third number, Patrick Sheehan, had barely begun when the Captain of Leinster House and a number of Dail ushers swooped.

Mr Healy, his wife, Ms Mary Murphy, and their daughters, Shelley (21), Siobhan (20), Aisling (14), and Niamh (eight) were invited inside but the supporters who had travelled up on the coaches discovered that their spontaneity, in an institution with strict rules on etiquette, had not been appreciated.

"Sorry, folks, that's the end of that; it shouldn't have started in the first place," they were told.

Before being welcomed by Senator Tom Hayes, the Fine Gael candidate who lost out for the seat last Friday, and his party colleague, Ms Theresa Ahearn TD, Mr Healy again tried to talk himself out of a job which he hadn't yet begun.

"The shorter the period that I sit in this particular Dail the better," he said.

Any lingering doubt that may have existed about his feelings about the Government was dispelled when he said that as well as being absolutely tainted by scandal and corruption it was arrogant and refused to listen to ordinary people.

He would not be a "pawn for any government or opposition" and was "crucially different" to other Independents because he was not a "one-man band" and had an organisation behind him with seven local authority seats.

Since he is not aligned to any party Mr Healy opted to introduce himself to the Dail. He was watched from the visitors' gallery by his family and friends.

He will hardly have time to warm his seat with only three days before the summer holidays which last until October.