No time like the present as 'Wind-Up Mattie' toys with the Ceann Comhairle and brings a little cheer to TDs

THERE’S A must-have new toy on the political market this festive season.

“Wind-Up Mattie” is going down a storm with giddy deputies.

But you have to pity the long-suffering Ceann Comhairle, Seán Barrett. All week, he had to endure the noise coming out of Mattie and the happy squeals from TDs on all sides.

“Push my buttons and hear me roar. I’m Wind-Up Mattie on the Dáil floor.” They can’t get enough of him.

There was a particularly bewildering contribution from Deputy McGrath during the Order of Business on Thursday morning. Nobody had the foggiest, not least Seán Barrett, who looked like he might start to cry.

But there was a reason for his unfathomable contribution . . .

Wind-Up Mattie got particularly wound up on Wednesday evening when he saw his Tipperary South colleague Tom Hayes (FG) going into the Government Chief Whip’s office with a delegation of Army wives from Clonmel Barracks.

Paul Kehoe is also Minister of State for Defence and the women wanted to talk to him about the closure of the barracks.

That didn’t bother Mattie. What wound him up was the sight of Cllr Siobhán Ambrose entering the office with the group.

Now that Mattie has left the mother ship, Siobhán is seen as Fianna Fáil’s great hope in Tipperary South and she poses a big threat to Deputy McGrath’s seat.

Mattie was so furious he said afterwards to Deputy Hayes – who set up the meeting – that he was thinking of raising the issue of non-members availing of the “facilities” at the next day’s Order of Business.

Hayes, along with his FG colleague Patrick O’Donovan (Limerick) sympathised with Mattie.

Anxious to assist him and in anticipation of some entertainment the following morning, the pair even drafted a wording for him and left it in his pigeonhole overnight. Mattie duly obliged.

An Ceann Comhairle: I call Deputy Mattie McGrath. I remind him to confine his question to promised legislation.

Mattie: Indeed. It is Christmas time, as the Ceann Comhairle has said twice. Under existing legislation, are the facilities of this House being made available to non-members? I think they are. They have been. I am very surprised by it. Can the Tánaiste clarify the matter? I know Deputy Hayes ...

CC What legislation is the Deputy talking about?

Mattie (incensed): I am talking about the existing legislation of the House. Are facilities being made available to non-members?

CC: The standing orders of the House constitute the legislation under which we operate.

Mattie: Yes.

CC: The Deputy is breaching them.

Mattie: Under standing orders ...

CC: Would you mind resuming your seat?

Mattie: No, a Cheann Comhairle. Are they being made available to non-members of the House?

CC: What? The standing orders?

Mattie: I refer to the facilities of the House.

CC: I will certainly get ...

At this point, Labour’s Colm Keaveny intervenes because, like everyone else, he hasn’t a clue what Deputy McGrath is shouting about.

Keaveney: What facilities?

Colm’s colleague, John Lyons, is similarly stumped.

Lyons: Is he referring to the toilets?

CC: This matter is not in order on the Order of Business.

Whereupon Tom Hayes stands up and with a straight face declares: “Deputy McGrath has asked a genuine question that deserves an answer.”

The Ceann Comhairle (losing the will to live) shut down the discussion and moved to other business, leaving Wind-Up Mattie to delight the Dáil for the remainder of the week. On Thursday, he said Government deputies would get a hard time from voters when they returned to their constituencies for Christmas.

“There will be blood drawn!” To add to Deputy McGrath’s state of dudgeon – having got no satisfaction on the Cllr Ambrose front, given that she was fully entitled to be in Leinster House – he broke terrible news to us on Friday. “Somebody robbed my hat.” The big trilby-type thing? “That’s right. The cowboy hat. Gone.”

And in Leinster House too. We trust an investigation will be carried out at the highest level.