The schools are closed, the sunshine has packed its bags for warmer climes and the first term of the new Dáil is done.
After three rancorous months of scrapping and squabbling and precious little work, the politicians are off on their Easter break. They laid on a tumultuous start, even by the knockabout standards of Kildare Street.
This recess gives everyone a chance to cool down and hit the reset button. Although the animus created by the bizarre speaking rights row – a mess of the Government’s own making – will linger.
It’s been a mad beginning to the political year for an off-the-wall Dáil.
What’s in the Easter parade?
Is there anything to be said for three more Junior Ministers?
There most definitely is, said the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, in need of some independent ballast for their incoming Coalition. The new Ministers were needed “to ensure a strong and stable Government”, apparently.
We have the most Ministers of State ever – 23 of them.
And best of all, a whole half dozen of them are women.
Jemser balance respected
The highlight of the unveiling of Micheál Martin and Simon Harris’s new Cabinet was its completely lopsided gender balance. It was quickly pointed out that the Cabinet line-up was 20 per cent women – Norma Foley, Helen McEntee and Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and 20 per cent men called James – Jim O’Callaghan, James Lawless and James Browne.
Outstanding dust-up
Independent TD Mattie McGrath and Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins squared up to each other in the chamber after a dramatic day ended with the Government forcing through controversial changes to the speaking rights rules.
McGrath, after some initial dithering, had thrown in his lot with Government supporting Independents who wanted to question the Coalition during an Opposition time slot.
And Collins was a vocal member of the combined opposition bloc vehemently against the move.
In the last Dáil, they were both members of the Rural Independent Group.
When the session broke-up in disarray, McGrath stormed from his seat at the far end of the chamber past the furious TDs from Independent Ireland.
Heated words ensued as McGrath called his former colleague the second traitor named Michael Collins to come out of west Cork and the Skibbereen TD told his erstwhile comrade to “clear off up to Lowry”.
The two men, red faced and roaring, confronted each other until an usher moved discreetly between them and defused the situation.
Best reason for unashamedly seeking enhanced speaking rights
Another gong for McGrath who told us: “I need speaking time. A dumb priest doesn’t get a parish.”
Easter egg insint bréaga award
This goes to the Independent deputy for Galway, Catherine Connolly, who correctly pointed out that the Taoiseach got his grammar wrong in the Dáil when he accused Mary Lou McDonald of telling lies. He did this as Gaeilge so it took a while for Sinn Féin to take grave offence but its deputies rose to the occasion in complete consternation once the pingin dropped.
In a furore even more unlikely than the speaking arrangements row, apologies were demanded and ignored and sittings were disrupted as the exact meaning of the Taoiseach’s claim was debated by Fianna Fáil’s language scholars.
[ Podcast: Did Micheál Martin call Mary Lou McDonald a liar?Opens in new window ]
McDonald was “ag insint bréag” said Martin. “Ag insint bréaga” said the official record a couple of hours later.
Gaeilgeoir Connolly, who knows her stuff, pointed out that the Dáil’s reporters got the grammar right. The controversy fizzled out but former schoolteacher Martin remains mortified.
Phoney sincerity
Government backbenchers, forced to bat for a handful of Independent TDs enjoying more attention than them while demanding more perks than them. As one deputy told us at Fianna Fáil’s ardfheis in January: “I should have run as an Independent. I’d be in the Government and the Opposition now.”
It explains the winces when Cian O’Callaghan of the Social Democrats told the Taoiseach on yet another day of Independent-induced turmoil: “Your backbenchers are well aware you wouldn’t be going to these extremes for them”
Most embarrassing episode
The Social Democrats can come across as a bit holier-than-thou during Dáil exchanges. A young political party compared to most of the battle scarred groupings in Leinster House, its TDs remain unencumbered by the shame of scandals past.
The downright neck of Lowry’s Independents demanding to be the treated as Opposition members while fully supporting the Government, outraged the Soc Dems.
When their new TD, Eoin Hayes, told porkies about when he sold shares in a company associated with the Israeli military, he was immediately banished from the parliamentary party to the Independent benches.
That ban was “indefinite”. Hayes was listed as an Independent in the Dáil and described as such in media reports and Oireachtas reports. Nobody in the Soc Dems cared to dispute this.
[ Podcast: Sanctimonious Soc Dems find themselves on shaky high moral groundOpens in new window ]
But then the party needed Hayes to have enough numbers to bag two coveted committee chairs. Suddenly, he was officially claimed as one of their own. For stroke-pulling purposes.
All eyes will be on Social Demindependent Hayes when the Dáil returns to see if he remains on the Independent benches or is repatriated to the mother ship.
Where’s mammy’s shoe award for international diplomacy
Members of the family of Enoch Burke travelled to a far and distant land in March to protest against his imprisonment.
They were spotted on a flight to Washington by journalists covering the Taoiseach’s St Patrick’s week trip to the US, leading to all sorts of speculation as to where they might eventually surface in the States.
[ Burke family pays Facebook to promote its video of their Washington DC protestOpens in new window ]
There were rumours that the Castlebar disrupters might even have wangled an invite to the White House from some of their high-profile Maga admirers.
In the end, Isaac and Ami Burke, along with their mother Martina, glammed up and brazened their way into the black-tie Ireland Funds dinner in Washington DC. They bellowed briefly from the sidelines at keynote speaker, Micheál Martin, before being hauled out by security.
Mammy lost her shoe, again.
And Conor McGregor got the invitation to the Oval Office.
No shuffle reshuffle award
There was big media turnout in January for the announcement of Sinn Féin’s new line-up for a new Dáil era. Or “a significant reshuffle” as Mary Lou McDonald promised.
“Nobody is in a position indefinitely,” she said, before taking a wrecking ball to her old front bench and dropping, er, just one TD. Longford-Westmeath’s Sorca Clarke drew the short straw.
The young and the brash
With so much upheaval in the opening months, the 60-plus intake of first-time TDs have had little chance to make a mark. It was difficult for any individual to make a mark with so much noise and distraction going on.
Enter Barry Heneghan, the young and brash TD for Dublin Bay North who found himself in the spotlight from the very beginning as part of the Lowry group of Independent TDs who pledged to support the Government “through thick or thin” and then “on a case-by-case basis” when the rules had to be tweaked to allow them pass themselves off as Opposition deputies for public relations purposes.
Never one to pass a microphone, Heneghan shrugged off criticism of his association with the controversial Lowry and said he didn’t really care about the Moriarty tribunal (before his time and cost a packet) and the damning findings it made against his fellow Regional Group member.
[ Storm Lowry lands in Dáil Éireann - and it’s a miracle the roof stayed onOpens in new window ]
While the Opposition went into meltdown over the stroke pulled by Lowry to snaffle better speaking slots for his inexperienced colleagues who didn’t get ministerial jobs in return for shoring up the Coalition, Heneghan smirked and gestured alongside Lowry at those Opposition TDs furious at the Government for indulging them.
This culminated in Lowry giving the two fingers to a protesting Paul Murphy of Solidarity as a chuckling Heneghan looked on.
The backlash hit home with the greenhorn from Clontarf. He said he didn’t want to sit beside Lowry any more and took himself off to a quiet spot in a far corner of the chamber beside Social Demindependent Eoin Hayes and Danny Healy-Rae.
Best Leo Varadkar tribute act
American vice-president JD Vance wore novelty shamrock socks in the Oval Office when the Taoiseach had his meeting with president Donald Trump. Vance, delighted with himself, showed off his socks at every opportunity.
Very Leo.
The Irish contingent took this as a good sign. The meeting passed off without any major incident, mainly because Trump never stopped talking about himself and the Taoiseach just sat beside him looking embarrassed.
Never said a truer word award
“You’re making an absolute holy show of yourselves!” One for the ages from Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy during chaotic scenes of Opposition protest after the speaking arrangements vote was carried.
Mind you, she told the Taoiseach to stop behaving like a child during later exchanges. He looked so taken aback he shut up immediately.
Then he threw himself on the floor and had a screaming tantrum, but only in his head.
A magnificent endorsement
At the start of the year, when the Lowry-led group prepared to support the new Government through good times and bad, the Taoiseach was still fielding questions over whether he was right to enlist the support of Michael Lowry, a man he once said was unfit to be a TD.
There is “nothing corrupt in the programme for government” Micheál Martin told reporters, repeatedly stressing that he didn’t give Lowry one of the ministerial jobs.
“Michael Lowry is not in Government ... he’s not in Government to do any corruption” said the Taoiseach.
Fair enough.
Best groceries
Donald Trump’s pending “Liberation Day” announcement of sweeping new tariffs on goods around the world concentrated minds in Ireland and jolted the Dáil back to more serious matters than speaking arrangements.
In his rambling address from the White House Rose Garden, Trump introduced his league table of tariffs and continued his fascination with eggs. There will be no “plastic eggs” this Easter, he promised.
What are eggs?
“An old fashioned term that we use: groceries… it’s such an old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Gro-cer-eeees.
“It sorta says a bag with different things in it.”
The Taoiseach could have enlightened him ever further had Trump mentioned groceries when they met.
“In Ireland, we call them a few bits.”
Another win for Kerry
Freshly minted Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae and his brother Danny hailed the announcement of more than €33 million in road grants for Kerry with typical humility: “It’s the dawning of a new era.”
While protesting they have no deal with the Government in return for their support, the Healy-Raes were happy to announce they “worked really hard” on delivering this investment.
“The people want tar and that is what we will give them,” declared Michael.
