Dáil Sketch/FrankMcNally: Enda Kenny's pre-season altitude training continues to pay off. Where Pat Rabbitte, who was forced to prepare for the autumn session at sea level, has so far failed in his heroic attempts to force a correction of the Dáil record from the Taoiseach, the Fine Gael leader yesterday succeeded.
It was on an entirely different subject, yet it was still an impressive achievement.
Speaking softly but carrying a big piece of research, Mr Kenny asked the Taoiseach if it was true, as a new book would claim, that his then special adviser on the North had met the leader of the "Real IRA" in the months after the Omagh bomb. He was not casting aspersions on Martin Mansergh, he stressed. But if such a meeting had happened, it would contradict the Taoiseach's previous statements to the House. And, just as softly, the Taoiseach conceded that the meeting had indeed taken place.
Maybe Mr Rabbitte thought his time had finally come. If corrections of the record were being handed out, he wanted one too. So, emboldened by the Fine Gael leader's success, he returned to attack the indemnity for the religious institutions, this time from the angle of the closure of the One in Four group.
Lightning would not strike twice, however. As far as Mr Ahern is concerned, the Labour leader is a broken record on the indemnity issue, and a mere correction won't fix him. But he still wasn't getting one anyway.
Fianna Fáil's weekend in Killarney continued to hang over the chamber. With Kerry-born Joe Higgins still in jail, Pat Rabbitte fretted about the possibility of Jackie Healy Rae following him into political martyrdom via opposition to the smoking ban. "To lose one Kerry deputy to Mountjoy might be considered unfortunate," he suggested, inquiring when the smoking regulations would be signed. (Next month, according to the Taoiseach.)
The possibility that Fianna Fáil has already prepared plans to replace Mr Healy Rae was broached when Mr Kenny congratulated the Taoiseach on his Killarney performance.
Meanwhile, the National Infrastructure Board attracted some scepticism.
The board is designed to counteract the planning problems caused by what Mr Ahern calls "swans, snails, and people hanging out of trees". Mr Rabbitte reminded the house that the Taoiseach had been "up a few trees". And, for the first time in a while, the Taoiseach was happy to agree with him. But it was Mr Kenny, who's been up Kilimanjaro, who finished the day happiest.