Having welcomed him back with a traditional Irish ambush on Tuesday, the House belatedly got around yesterday to inquiring how the Taoiseach enjoyed his trip to Asia.
It was soon "sorry for asking", as Mr Ahern gave an exhaustive account of his many meetings in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Bahrain.
"The Taoiseach must be tired," said Pat Rabbitte. "I was tired just listening."
When Mr Ahern admitted that the trip was fatiguing, Mr Rabbitte said he deserved "a week off". This was broadly in line with Labour policy, which is that the Taoiseach should get five years off at the earliest opportunity.
But Mr Ahern has already benefited from Labour's commitment to improving workers' conditions thanks to the two-day week for taoisigh (facing Dáil questions) that the party helped introduce after the last election.
Seizing his last chance this week to attack Mr Ahern in person, Joe Higgins raised the newspaper pictures from Bahrain in which the Taoiseach was portrayed sitting alongside Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa and other "well-nourished emirs and princes".
So comfortable did he look in their company, suggested Mr Higgins, that, but for the Arabs' head-dress, "it would have been hard to tell you apart".
Mr Ahern said he was far from comfortable. "It was 47 degrees."
But he was slightly less pithy when the Socialist Party TD inquired whether the trip had been totally devoted to trade ("fumbling in the greasy till") or if he had raised the human rights records of countries visited.
Human rights were always on the agenda, Mr Ahern replied, but different countries had "different ways of doing things".
He cited Malaysia. "They have 98 people in parliament - I think 96 of them are in government, and two are in opposition."
Pat Rabbitte suggested that such a system "wouldn't deter Deputy Higgins". To which the deputy in question replied: "Sometimes this parliament seems like that."
When Mr Higgins asked whether any of Mr Ahern's hosts raised Ireland's assistance of the "criminal invasion of Iraq", he may have been playing to the gallery. The distinguished visitors' section yesterday included the Northern Secretary, Paul Murphy, who was also present for the Taoiseach's assessment that Murphy's Law is alive and well in the country formerly known as Burma.
Mr Ahern was explaining how he delivered the EU's statement on Myanmar at the EU-Asia summit, and summarised: "Everything that can go wrong with Myanmar, has gone wrong."
After Tuesday's confrontations, an almost Malaysian consensus had descended on the Dáil. Enda Kenny devoted his Leaders' Questions slot to Margaret Hassan, "an issue that should unite and not divide the House".
The House duly united and, in general, discord was minimal.
For the second day running, the distinguished backbenchers' gallery included Michael Smith, gazing benignly down on the Taoiseach who sacked him. So benign is Mr Smith, in fact, that observers are now convinced he foresees a bright future, probably as Ireland's next representative in the EU Court of Auditors.