Taxing times for Lenihan as Higgins recalls his early days in the House

DÁIL SKETCH:Debate ranged from sins venial and mortal to liqueur chocolates as TDs got ready to go

CONSTITUTIONAL NICETIES, the difference between venial and mortal sin, birth control and liqueur chocolates featured in exchanges yesterday, as the 30th Dáil began to draw to a close.

The House will sit on Saturday night, if the Seanad amends the Finance Bill.

Otherwise, it will sit briefly on Tuesday, if Taoiseach Brian Cowen has not by then made that fateful trip to see the President and seek its dissolution.

Yesterday was the last full sitting day, with the Finance Bill passing its final stages after Wednesday’s high-noon deal between Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and Independents Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry.

When proceedings got under way, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore could not contain himself with curiosity about the timing of the election.

He asked Lenihan about the Government’s intentions, but the Minister dismissed the question with the claim that the Labour leader was displaying “considerable constitutional ignorance”.

Lenihan urged Gilmore to “get in training for the high office to which he aspires”, adding that

the Government had no function in dissolving the Dáil. The President did so on the Taoiseach’s advice.

Gilmore, putative tánaiste according to the polls, assured Lenihan he was very familiar with the Constitution.

Labour’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton sought the inclusion of a provision in the Finance Bill requiring that all tax expenditure and schemes be subject to a cost-benefit analysis.

Party colleague Michael D Higgins, clearly a keen student of the penny catechism, recalled a finance Bill debate when the late Oliver J Flanagan, a legendary Fine Gael TD, added “some particularly valuable theological colour to his lecture on the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion”.

Flanagan had compared it to the difference between venial and mortal sin, said Higgins.

Conceding that Higgins had made an eloquent case, the Minister said that crucial tax reliefs provided in the Bill

would be subject to cost-benefit analysis.

However, he challenged the accuracy of the comparison with venial and mortal sin.

“In terms of the theology of that era, I would prefer to say it is the distinction between the natural and artificial method,” said Lenihan.

This prompted Higgins to recall the bitter and divisive contraception debates of the 1980s. “We had that debate, too, in my time, I can assure you,” he said.

Lenihan, with a sense of relief, observed: “Happily, not in mine.” Higgins recalled his early days in the Seanad when “a famous professor from Cork” had argued that condoms could be as dangerous as liqueur chocolates were in the days when he had spoken on the Intoxicating Liquor Act.

“History would want to be charitable to him,” said the Labour deputy.

When the final Finance Bill vote was taken, the Government had a comfortable majority. Fianna Fáil’s Dermot Ahern arrived on crutches, following a recent operation.

There were handshakes all-round. Retiring TDs were particularly sought out and wished well.

Micheál Martin was congratulated on his election as Fianna Fáil leader. He had just about made an earlier vote, sprinting up the stairs to the chamber, as he discarded his overcoat.

His political sprint is only beginning.