Dáil Sketch:It is perhaps not really the best title to have, to be called the "Minister for Happiness".
Similarities with George Orwell's "Ministry of Peace" (concerned with war) and "Ministry of Love" (law and order) come to mind.
But such was the accolade Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny gave Minister for Education Mary Hanafin.
As the EU water directive begins to hit schools with large increases in water charges, Enda said Mary the Minister for Happiness "was completely helpless and threw her hands up in despair" when she was asked what she was going to do about those astronomical water charges. And that was very unusual for Happy Hanafin.
Enda had called Mary the Minister for Happiness because when she got the job "she wanted happy parents, happy teachers and happy pupils".
And in fairness the Minister herself did not appear too despondent in the Dáil yesterday at having responsibility for happiness, because she retorted - with a happy smile - "a happy school is a good school".
But Enda, following a certain theme here, blamed the Government for lacking "joined-up thinking" and said "this is not a happy, clappy situation".
In similar vein he opined that when the charges started to bite and schools could not afford them, the Minister would not be visiting those schools and saying "we're all on the dry here". To which the Minister for Happiness, herself smartly and smilingly, retorted: "I've been on the dry all my life."
While Enda was picking on Mary, he was actually questioning the Taoiseach. And Bertie told him "it's the law" and "that's what we voted for".
To be correct, he said it was an EU law, the EU water framework directive. Ireland got a derogation on homes but unhappily not for schools. So get used to it, start conserving water and maybe the local authorities and the relevant departments could come to an arrangement, seemed to be the message.
However, blaming the EU for costly laws is probably not the message you want to send when you've an EU reform treaty referendum to pass. But hey, one problem at a time.
Today Bertie travels to Lisbon to sign the reform treaty agreement after which it'll be all systems go to begin the process of persuading the Irish electorate to back some more EU laws.
But a bit like the third secret of Fatima in its day, Bertie wouldn't name the day for the referendum. "A date has not been set," was all he'd tell Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan.
But when Labour's Joe Costello expressed suspicion that Bertie might be telling his EU colleagues but not telling the rest of us, the Taoiseach said he'd be consulting the Opposition "in the next few weeks".