Marie O’Halloran’s Dáil sketch: Wimps, Sopranos, sit-ins and a little waffle

“You’re a wimp,” said Mary Lou McDonald.

And in case the Tánaiste didn’t hear her because it was said off-microphone, she repeated it: “You’re a wimp.” Just before that she’d told her, “You’re an absolute disgrace.”

As parliamentary language goes it’s certainly less shocking to the House – and the media – than the apparent threat the Sinn Féin deputy leader made about having another sit-in.

“We went through this drama last November. I hope we don’t have to go through it again,” she warned and there was a collective inhalation of breath. Would she do it again?

The last sit-in for more than four hours was over Mary Lou’s complaint that Joan Burton didn’t answer her questions – on water charges.

Joan didn’t answer this latest one either – a “Yes or No” – do you support the plan for attachment orders to wages, social welfare and pensions” for those who refuse to pay their Irish Water bills.

Instead she said she supported Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly’s work “to bring in affordable charges... and the work he has done in reframing the charges for Irish Water”.

That’s when Mary Lou demanded a Yes or No answer to support for attachment orders and accused her of being a wimp. This type of row is almost standard argy-bargy between the two.

Mafia drama

This time it was probably started when Mary Lou compared the environment minister to a character from the US mafia drama

The Sopranos

. “Portroe’s [Tipperary] own Paulie Walnuts” who was there to “put the squeeze on families with nothing left to give”.

Bad comparison because Joan was right back with another Sopranos character ; she compared Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams with Uncle Junior.

The Tánaiste then went on about Sinn Féin’s changing views on whether or not to pay water charges to which Mary Lou retorted: “You might answer the question. That would be a novel approach.”

There was more in that vein, that on the issue of water charges the Tánaiste does “a tour around the world in verbal terms”.

Fianna Fáil’s Colm Keaveney was more blunt when he asked the Tánaiste to name the date when the Government would stop the practice of admitting children accessing mental health services to adult wards. He told her he didn’t want “waffle” and no taking “a meandering road and talking about some time in the past. You’ve been in Government for five years – deal with it”.

Joan told him they had been in Government for four years. “The deputy was out by 20 per cent on that point.”

Making a very serious point, the former Labour Party TD referred to the “high-profile reports last week of inappropriate relationships between staff and service users”.

He asked repeatedly for the Tánaiste to give a date for the ending of the “Dickensian” practice of hospitalising children with adults and if she would guarantee their welfare in terms of child protection.

Joan reminded him of his days on the Labour benches, before his defection to Fianna Fáil, when he often praised the Government for the priority it had given to children”, adding that “Deputy Keaveney was very eloquent on that”.

Oh how they laughed on the Government benches. It was a smart political point to win but it’s not a good look to be seen laughing on an issue about children and mental health.