Dail Sketch/Frank McNally: While a packed Public Accounts Committee debated the indemnity deal that could have been done by the former minister for education - "Woodsie," as the opposition likes to call him - the deal actually concluded was being outlined by his successor in an almost deserted Dáil.
"Dempsey", as he's affectionately known, has had his share of controversies, but he's free from blame in this one. And pressed for details of the handover of religious properties under the agreement, he was relaxed and to the point.
The State had rejected some of those already offered as unsuitable, he said, and was now considering a second list, a process that could be repeated indefinitely. But if the other party was deemed not to be acting "in good faith", or was "messing around" by offering worthless properties, the State could go to arbitration.
It was a disturbing thought that religious institutions might be acting in anything other than good faith. Yet faith of any kind was in short supply on the opposition benches.
Fine Gael's Olwyn Enright fretted that the deal offered the State no clear right to arbitration, while Labour's Jan O'Sullivan feared the religious could use the terms to stall: "It could go on for years, Minister, with all the properties they have."
The controversy over the then attorney general's role, or lack of one, in the negotiations could go on for years, too.
Parties are sometimes accused of being slow to take down their posters after an election campaign but, despite prompting, Mary Harney did nothing yesterday to remove Michael McDowell from the lamp-post where his critics have pinned him.
Pat Rabbitte offered her the opportunity on the Order of Business debate, at least to praise him, like the Taoiseach. She resisted the temptation, and Mr McDowell continues to hang on his pole, in contravention of the litter laws.
Among the visitors to Leinster House yesterday was a history-themed tour group from the US, including a Mr Don Morrow from Chicago. On other days, a visitor from the Windy City would be right at home here, but the House was relatively becalmed when the tourists called, and they settled for a visit to see the flag of the Irish Brigade in the American Civil War, presented to the Dáil by John F. Kennedy.
The spectacles they missed in the chamber included that of the Clare Independent, James Breen, questioning the Minister for Education - poignantly - from the corner normally occupied by the jailed TD, Joe Higgins.
The Fianna Fáil-leaning Mr Breen would have little in common with Mr Higgins's Trotskyist world view, but even so he did his best to harry the political establishment. Meanwhile, sitting behind the Minister, in the "doughnutting" role, Fianna Fáil backbencher Jim Glennon passed the time by making a paper aeroplane.
Sadly, the plane, like Minister's question time, never took off as a spectacle. And, while they might have learned something from studying Glennon and Trotsky, the US history group didn't miss much.