DÁIL SKETCH:IT WAS a novel suggestion - move the Dáil across the Atlantic. "We should be sitting in America because that's where the Ministers are," thundered Fine Gael's Michael Ring. "The Government is in exile, running away all the time," he roared. Marie O'Halloranwrites.
"It's a disgrace. The people are sick of it. They are acting like dictators."
"They're acting like princes," quipped his colleague Fergus O'Dowd.
But deputy Ring was on a roll. "God help the country," he said, theatrically.
The Ceann Comhairle shushed him. "Unless deputy Ring has a tip for Cheltenham, I ask him not to intervene."
Observers would be forgiven for thinking the Mayo deputy was standing in for his party leader Enda Kenny. In fact, deputy leader Richard Bruton was on the job. He pointed out that on Wednesday 20 Ministers were already abroad on so-called St Patrick's Day duty and "today 27 Ministers are abroad".
He didn't mind a brief recess to attend functions but "we are now seeing Ministers leaving their Dáil duties for three weeks at a stretch".
The ever-reasonable deputy Bruton said: "We all accept that people need to attend important events".
The taxpayer might ask if it made any difference to have all the Ministers absent and, in a nod to the presence of Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan, he said: "The trouble is that they'll have some carbon offset headache to pay for when they come back."
He thought it was all getting out of hand, and he was not talking about the price. Traditionally the House always sat in Holy Week but they were adjourning yesterday until April 2nd. The Government was "continually fraying the edges" and disrespecting the House, he said. There had been very little legislation for much of the term, "and now Ministers skive off at the first opportunity".
It was time "to take a look at ourselves".
Deputy Ring was looking at the ministerial bench and was unimpressed.
"Look at what is left behind to run the country," he harrumphed, as all eyes moved to Ministers Séamus Brennan, Willie O'Dea and Eamon Ryan, whom Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin dubbed "the three amigos". Willie quickly retorted: "It could be worse." It could be Deputy Ring.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore was blunt - well, as blunt as parliamentary language would allow. He said it was good that the country was the focus of worldwide attention for a day or two, and that Ministers attended.
But some Ministers "have been tearing the rear end out of it".
Normally rows about the length of the Dáil recess are the norm for the final day of term, but a two-week adjournment is modest.
He wouldn't make a fuss about Easter, but by God, "I give notice that if the Government has in mind to rise at the beginning of July and not sit again until the end of September, the Labour Party will create one hell of a fuss".
The question is, will the Government quake?