Dail Sketch/Marie O'Halloran: Willie O'Dea's smiling face as he pointed an automatic pistol at readers of The Irish Times provoked horror and humour in almost equal measure in the Dáil yesterday.
Green party leader Trevor Sargent was aghast that the Minister for Defence had allowed himself to be photographed pointing a gun at a cameraman for the photograph used on the paper's front page and in a number of other newspapers.
Describing it as the promotion of gun culture, the Dublin North TD was amazed by it, given the "horrific shootings and escalating levels of violent crime occurring on a day-to-day basis".
The jousting started when Minister for Justice Michael McDowell quipped: "Keep taking the tablets, Trevor".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte was next to fire a shot across the Minister's bow when he said the photograph was at the very least "an ill-judged tasteless stunt by a Minister mad on publicity and completely without regard for the environment in which he permits this to happen".
"It was taken in Limerick East," shouted one TD.
The Minister replied that the Labour leader should "take the issue up with the editor of The Irish Times".
"Was the gun loaded?" asked Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
"We were lucky it wasn't," quipped his party colleague, David Stanton.
Fine Gael's justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe chimed in: "Will he now be known as Willie the Kid?"
Mr Sargent returned to the seriousness of the issue and asked "are we to expect any ministerial accountability".
"Raise the matter with The Irish Times," suggested Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.
The questions turned to other issues but, keeping Mr O'Dea in the frame, his constituency colleague, Labour's Jan O'Sullivan, called on the Minister for Defence to "turn his attention to defending his own region", because of the phasing out of the Shannon stopover.
"That side of the House doesn't like competition," offered Mr McDowell.
"I'll give Deputy O'Sullivan my number four preference," said Mr O'Dea.
But as usual it was Socialist deputy Joe Higgins who got the greatest laugh.
He asked Tánaiste Mary Harney: "As a matter of Dáil security, did you require the Minister for Defence to leave his weapon at the door this morning?"
Mr Higgins added: "If not, I was going to ask Deputy Ferris to go over and disarm him." "