Take comfort weary TDs - only 33 sitting days till Christmas

DÁIL SKETCH:THE DÁIL is back. Happy new year, lads. Only 33 sitting days left until Christmas. No wonder everyone looked exhausted.

Brian Cowen is battling media claims he was legless. Enda Kenny – because he keeps shooting himself in the toes – is footless. Eamon “one size fits all” Gilmore is earnestly trying to convince floating voters that he’s ’armless. And succeeding too, according to the latest round of figures.

As election fever begins to take hold, TDs are slowly entering that heightened state of madness where they can’t tell their arse from their elbow. And that’s the state of our body politic. Not good.

Parliamentary business may have resumed after a 12-week break yesterday but enthusiasm was thin on the ground among TDs, such is the air of decay around the 30th Dáil.

They seem tired and war weary. Few bothered to turn up on the Government back benches for the opening skirmishes of the session. Opposition deputies appeared preoccupied.

The mood was bleak.

Like a banjaxed Burco, this Dáil has run out of steam.

Still. At least there is the summer of 2011 to look forward to – the House will rise on July 7th, according to the official Dáil calendar for the next year, which was issued at lunchtime.

The House breaks for Easter on April 21st and returns on May 10th. Meanwhile, the Christmas recess starts on December 16th of this year and they come back on January 19th – that’s only 4½ weeks. So it’s all mapped out and ahead of then. Byelections and general elections permitting.

The spectre of the gallows looms over Fianna Fáil. They held a parliamentary party meeting at midday, emerging with the encouraging news that the leadership of Fianna Fáil is not an issue anymore because there is no challenger.

Some members told the meeting that, in terms of his communication skills, “the Taoiseach has improved”. This must have come as a great comfort to Brian Cowen, who says he isn’t on probation.

Meanwhile, Independent TD Finian McGrath was trying to lighten the mood with a little joke he’d picked up over the holidays. “What’s the difference between the 70 Fianna Fáil deputies and the 33 Chilean miners? The miners stand a better chance of being rescued.”

He mainly told Opposition deputies. It’s not nice to mock the afflicted. To their faces.

Speaking of which, the Fine Gael leader looked very down in the dumps as the afternoon wore on. Then again, what remains of his bullet-riddled feet must be very painful.

Perhaps he was having intimations of opinion polls to come.

Not that the Taoiseach had much to smile about. Which is why he didn’t bother.

Although even Biffo would have found it difficult not to get a giggle out of what happened out on Kildare Street earlier in the day, as politicians arrived for work.

The place was alive with protesters, bristling with anger and frustration at the Government. As they tried to sidestep the protesting hordes of humanity without drawing attentions to themselves, deputies were stopped by journalists seeking new-term quotes.

As this was outside the gates of Leinster House, anyone could join in. One woman – perhaps best described as a citizen journalist – joined the reporters thrusting microphones and recorders at the various politicians.

She managed to get a lengthy interview with two Fianna Fáil backbenchers, who spoke away into her “microphone” which was, in fact, a large black sex toy commonly known as a rampant rabbit.

Funnily enough, when the same woman tried to “interview” Pat Rabbitte through his car window, the former Labour leader grinned and drove off.

Takes one to know one, presumably.

The main event of the day turned out to be a damp squib.

So did Leaders’ Questions, when Brian Cowen tried to convince the nation that an annual €1.5 billion interest charge on a speculated €30 billion bailout cost for Anglo Irish Bank wasn’t too bad.

But that was just the support act. The main bout was due to take place in the Seanad chamber, when it was rumoured that Senator Ivor Callely might have to be forcibly removed if he turned up.

The Captain of the Guard in Leinster House mustered for the occasion, thrillingly looming at the back of the room as heads swivelled to see who was coming in each time the door opened.

But Ivor didn’t show.

Instead, we had to listen to the Taoiseach deliver a mixture of script and waffle on the bank guarantee and the black hole that is Anglo Irish Bank.

If it hadn’t been for the reliably brazen Government Chief Whip, rolled out yet again to defend the indefensible on the issue of avoiding the three outstanding byelections, the day would have been deeply depressing.

But John “Comical” Curran didn’t disappoint, lining out on behalf of the Democracy Dodgers, not one of whom joined him on the Government benches for his star turn.

Enda Kenny performed Putting on the Writs– although he didn't look any way in the mood for dancing. He moved them in the interests of democracy – Dublin South, Donegal South West and Waterford must not be ignored any longer.

Comical Curran, who stuck to his script and sounded like he was going to burst into tears at any moment, chided the Fine Gael leader for “denigrating the body politic” by insulting those wonderful deputies currently toiling in the aforementioned constituencies.

Distracting attention by holding three byelections “could be detrimental to the health of our economy” declared the irony-free zone that is Comical Curran.

Then he complained airily of “endless negativity” and asked for “maturity” before calling for a “moment of reflection” from the Opposition.

Then he said the byelections would be held in the “first quarter of 2011”. This, of course, means nothing, coming as it does from the people who told us Anglo Irish Bank wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a shilling.

A “distressed institution” as Brian Lenihan described it last night. Like the rest of us.