When a senior minister takes a leaf out of the Willie O'Dea handbook of vulgar abuse, it is time to check the Government's sell-by date. Mary O'Rourke normally responds aggressively under pressure. But, last Tuesday in the Dβil, there was a touch of Mike Tyson about her behaviour: she came close to chewing on an opponent's ear.
The Minister for Public Enterprise was determined to bury criticism of her stewardship of Aer Lingus, Eircom, Iarnr≤d Eireann and a raft of other State companies in a barrage of personalised sound bites. And she largely succeeded.
The whole unsavoury exercise, initiated with a view to the coming general election by Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Green Party, was bad for the Dβil and insulting to the intelligence of the electorate. If politicians wonder why voters have lost interest in their activities, they need look no further.
A vote of "no confidence" was proposed in a senior Minister because of her alleged incompetence. The Taoiseach was asked to remove her from office. Short of seeking a dissolution of the Dβil, the threat to the Government could not have been greater.
But it was a sham battle. The hearts of Michael Noonan, Ruair∅ Quinn and Trevor Sargent just weren't in it. With an eye to the Government's majority in the eventual Dβil vote, they listed Ms O'Rourke's failures and then gave up. Their supporters did not even crowd into the chamber to hear them. And when the Minister rose to defend herself, the number of Opposition TDs present did not break into double figures.
If the Opposition had identified Ms O'Rourke as the weakest link in the Cabinet, their failure to breach her defences was instructive. It wasn't that they were short of ammunition. Four-and-a half years of responsibility for public transport, energy and communication had generated a veritable boneyard of skeletons and a small mountain of controversies. But there was no passion underlying the criticisms of Mr Noonan, Mr Quinn and Mr Sargent. For them, it was just another Dβil set piece.
Not so for Ms O'Rourke. She was fighting for her political future. And she was taking no prisoners. Well aware of the rumblings on her own back benches about the need to make room for fresh talent, she showed a fierce determination to hang in there. The message was clear to her challengers within Fianna Fβil: they could expect the same kind of treatment.
It was rough going. Michael Noonan was "inert, inactive and unable". The Fine Gael leader had exhausted himself in a whispering campaign against John Bruton and was now "listless and lazy". And Fine Gael, she said, devoted too much time to soliciting and concealing offshore donations and evading tax.
Nobody knew what Ruair∅ Quinn stood for, she went on. Ms O'Rourke told the Labour Party leader there was "more to politics than turning red and making your eyes bulge" and she felt he was "a misplaced character from Noddy Gets Narky."
From there, she warned Trevor Sargent there was more to leadership than putting a name on a door or wearing a worried frown. And, she concluded, opposition by "the three Amigos" or by "Snap, Crackle and Pop" just didn't worry her. As intended, the Minister's slapstick response grabbed the few headlines that were going. But, for extra insurance, she listed all spending on transport, communication, energy and aviation that had taken place during the past 41/2 years.
But much of the work - such as the Luas and Metro projects - is still years from completion. And other State companies, such as Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta and Iarnr≤d Eireann are stumbling on the edge of crisis.
Michael Noonan had used broad brushstrokes in opening the debate. The Minister had meddled and stifled enterprise. Mismanagement and incompetence were her greatest sins. She had undermined air and rail transport by creating uncertainty and causing delays.
Ruair∅ Quinn found Ms O'Rourke "sadly out of her depth". She had failed to deliver an improvement in public transport and had pushed Aer Lingus to the brink of collapse. Some 15 failures would affect the long-term prosperity of the country. Trevor Sargent blamed her for an inadequate train service and a failure to develop wind power.
Mr Noonan and Mr Quinn didn't wait to hear the Minister defend herself. While a number of Government Ministers, including the Taoiseach, came into the chamber to publicly support her, representatives of the Opposition parties melted away. For years, opposition parties have complained of the decreasing media coverage given to the Dβil and about the gradual drift of power and influence to external consultative bodies. It has been one of the consequences of social partnership, of national pay agreements and the growth of the voluntary sector.
Time was when deliberations at Leinster House filled pages of the daily newspapers. But attention has now switched to the formulation of policy at Government level - filtered through spin-doctors - and to the involvement of the various pressure groups in that process. Only when the implementation of policy is threatened in the Dβil does the focus switch to elected representatives.
The nature of that coverage has altered, driven partly by competition within radio, television and the press. Tribunals and Oireachtas committees of inquiry have attracted increasing attention. In that context, Dβil members have responded with colourful and aggressive sound bites. They fit easily into short, snappy reports, frequently updated.
The Dβil remains the bulwark of democracy, even if good times have caused citizens to take it for granted. Its procedures and mechanisms should be treated with respect. That means less slapstick. And if the leaders of the Opposition parties don't take their criticisms seriously, who will?
dcoghlan@irish-times.ie