Dáil Sketch/Michael O'Regan: For reasons best known to the Government, the Dáil will not sit next week.
And the Opposition parties, feeling they have the Coalition on the run on a number of issues, made their displeasure known yesterday.
In some respects it was a sombre day in the House. There were statements on the Morris tribunal report, with the promise from the Government of a full debate when the House returns. The schedule, by the way, could be tight. Apparently, the Dáil will rise for its long summer recess on July 1st.
There was a series of statements on suicide, which all TDs agree is a major national scourge. Fine Gael's Dan Neville, who has taken a keen interest in the issue, referred to the high suicide rate among young males.
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen took the Order of Business, as he usually does on Thursdays these days. Oozing gravitas and sweetly reasonable, having clearly had a political personality change, he said that "arrangements have been made for some time in the House to use the week of the June Bank Holiday for the purposes of ensuring that the Dáil does not meet in plenary session".
But the issues raised by the Opposition would be discussed in time, he added.
John Gormley of the Green Party referred to the pressing issues which the House should debate, adding that the Government's response was to go on holidays and take its Cabinet roadshow to Cork.
"In three weeks' time we are off on holidays again," he added.
Minister Eamon Ó Cuív said Mr Gormley should speak for himself. "The House will be in recess and we are not being productive in this House," Mr Gormley replied. He accused ministers of being detached from the concerns of ordinary people and from reality.
Enda Kenny referred to the Government's seemingly fruitless search to find a chief executive of the Health Service Executive. Noting that the second person offered the job had withdrawn, he took some liberty with an Oscar Wilde quote, remarking: "To lose one is bad, but to lose two is careless." Meanwhile, throughout the morning the microphone system in the Ceann Comhairle's desk emitted a crackling sound reminiscent of the kind heard in garbled radio broadcasts of the 1930s. Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan observed that more than the electronic equipment had gone wrong. "The bug's working," suggested Sinn Féin's Seán Crowe.
The chamber will be silent next week as the House takes a legislative holiday. More than six decades ago, Cork poet Ned Buckley castigated the governments of the time for long Dáil adjournments. A verse of his offering, contained in the book, The Bard of Knocknagree, reads: "Our Ministers hate to be questioned Or to be brought over the coals For not making good to the people The promise made at the polls.
"If asked to account for their ventures Or their shining silk hats so tall, By the opposition front benches, They ups and adjourns the Dáil."