IT will be a notable occasion when Alan Dukes re enters the Dail, chamber as part of the Cabinet at the order of business on Wednesday morning. He outdoes most of them in ministerial experience, not to mention altitude. There will be some good natured ribbing from the Fianna Fail benches and John Bruton will undoubtedly wear his broadest "no problem" grin. But everybody in the House will be thinking: "What a turn up for the books."
Put Alan Dukes up there besides Lazarus, Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton and all the other comeback kids. This is the man who was out for the count, stretched hopelessly on the canvas with nobody bothering to throw him a towel or a sponge.
But quietly and diligently he turned up for work each day in Leinster House, perhaps sitting on the back benches throwing an occasional insult at some yobbo across the floor, or just another face in the crowd in the self service canteen, or batting away in his office at constituency duties or some project connected with the European Union, for which he has a great enthusiasm.
As a sop, he was given the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee but it was like having an Abbey star exclusively confined to the Peacock.
The delay in resuming his rightful place in the back of a Ministerial Mercedes was the result of a little local difficulty in the Fine Gael party, but the tension between him and John Bruton will now be papered over in the interests of staying in power. When this reporter mentioned his "rivalry" with the Taoiseach yesterday, he responded in the best Jack Lynch "what crisis?" tradition with: "What rivalry?"
Most observers feel there is a certain justice in his return to the front rank. As Fine Gael leader, his adoption of the Tallaght Strategy, whereby he backed Fianna Fail's attempt to rein in the runaway national debt, was generally seen as a patriotic act for which, like many a patriot before him, he received little or no thanks.
Alan Dukes arrived in the Dail in 1981 with a silver spoon in his mouth. Like Dr Noel Browne, Kevin Boland, Dr Martin O'Donoghue and Niamh Bhreathnach, he had the honour of becoming a Cabinet Minister immediately after getting elected.
He might have been better off cutting his teeth on the back benches, gaining the kind of experience that can't be bought or learned out of books. Likewise, it is generally acknowledged he would have been better off allowing Peter Barry a stint as party leader before throwing his own hat into the ring.
Well wishers in his parliamentary party said last night they hoped and believed he would row in with the consensus approach which is the norm in this Coalition cabinet. The Fine Gael grassroots are said to be very pleased with the appointment, which should make for greater unity and cohesion on that fateful day when the electorate will at last be faced.
Dukes is a polished TV and radio performer, hard to pin down in interviews, if a little too fond of interrupting opponents. He is more passionate about the issues than many of his colleagues. As well as being good for him, the appointment will ironically also benefit his old sparring partner Bruton, who has shown that loyalty is no longer such a decisive criterion when filling ministerial posts.
Older and wiser (he was 51 last April), Dukes will map out the landscape before making major strategic decisions (don't anybody mention the presidential election of 1990). Indeed, he must have cringed as he watched some of his less experienced colleagues who happened to be Ministers making a botch of various issues over recent months.
Born again with the Transport Energy and Communications portfolio under his arm, the Christian Brothers boy from Drimnagh and former chief economist with the Irish Farmers' Association is seen by his admirers as exactly the kind of politician Ireland needs to lead (yes, lead) her into the technocratic, pan European future.
His opponents and critics condemn him as politically arrogant and unbending, someone who lost touch with the foot soldiers during his time as party leader, and too clever by half to have a realistic chance of becoming the thinking person's Taoiseach. But both friends and enemies agree he is a lot closer to achieving that ambition than he was 48 hours ago.
