As the OAP tsunami arrived, outside the Dáil yesterday was no place for Government TDs, writes Miriam Lord
THEY SCUTTLED in when the division bells rang and did what they were told.
Fianna Fáil's backbenchers, conspicuous by their absence from the debate, pulled together last night and voted not to restore the over-70s medical card scheme. They had to do it - that's the price of party membership.
But the effort may cost them dearly in the long run. Over in China, Brian Cowen's ears must have been burning.
Bertie Ahern of the broken foot arrived on crutches, providing an added touch of drama at the end of an incredible day. A chair was procured for him, and he sat, like a favourite gouty uncle, with his bad leg outstretched and colleagues beating each other out of the way to talk to him.
He was all smiles. But then, he will have heard the pensioners out on the street earlier in the day, saying poor Bertie would never have put them in this horrendous situation and poor Charlie Haughey was up there in heaven, looking down on them, appalled.
Chinese papers, please copy.
There was always only going to be one result. Transported by the heady grip of people power, the pensioners believed they could influence the vote. If they couldn't shame Fianna Fáil, they could make a show of the Greens.
But the Greens have nailed their colours to the Fianna Fáil mast. Some, like a distressed Ciarán Cuffe, were clearly distraught by the policy, but he held the line.
"This Judas response . . . will be your epitaph," Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny told the Government.
The first vote was called at 8.34pm. The public gallery was packed. The quiet man at the centre of the storm, former Fianna Fáil deputy Joe Behan, voted with the Opposition.
But the numbers are still with the Government. Wearily, Cowen's tortured deputies did their duty. Their heads were with the party, but their hearts were with the pensioners.
Because the OAPs were brilliant yesterday. Unlikely militants, they took their anger to the national parliament and raged outside the gates. Thousands upon thousands of pensioners. They travelled from all parts, filling two city streets with the sound of protest.
They were like a force of nature. With an hour to go, only a couple of hundred people were assembled outside Leinster House, and Government deputies dared to hope that Cowen's climbdown on Tuesday had achieved the desired effect.
Then the floodgates opened and a seething deluge of OAPs poured in. By God, but they were livid.
Inside Leinster House, those Fianna Fáil and Green backbenchers who were not hiding in their offices stood around in anxious little huddles, whispering. Word was relayed from the front.
Five thousand.
Ten thousand.
Fifteen thousand.
More, maybe.
The scene outside was truly extraordinary. The sight of so many elderly people, pillars of their community, committed voters, decent law-abiding men and women, out on the streets laying siege to the Dáil, was unprecedented.
The gardaí on duty were afraid to move anyone on, even though the crowd was only supposed to be in Molesworth Street, instead of spilling right down Dawson Street as well.
So they minded them instead.
And the deputies listened to the dispatches and blanched. A slight air of hysteria took root in the House. The deputies shook their heads and abandoned any pretence that the situation was anything but an unmitigated disaster. Worse still, they admitted that they had brought it all on themselves.
Out on the streets, the pensioners were building up a head of steam. It was a brave Government deputy who would risk going out to meet them.
Brave, or foolhardy.
Which brings us to Fianna Fáil's Michael Kennedy, deputy for Dublin North, who went outside and tried to plamás the protesters. He was savaged.
Yes, the crowd was packed with the infirm and the lame. Yes, there were elastic stockings, bad hips, sticks and furry hats. The walking, heartrending clichés were out in force, but so too were the healthy, the glamorous and the strong.
"I was minding my own business when suddenly people started slapping me on the back and shouting 'Well done, Joe!' 'Well done, Joe!'" They had mixed him up with the hero of the hour, Joe Behan, who resigned last Friday in protest at the removal of the universal medical card for over-70s.
Joe, for his part, watched the astonishing scene from the security hut inside the gates. People kept telling him to go out and take a bow. But he wouldn't.
"That's not my sort of thing," he said.
The view from the platform, which stretched across the top of Molesworth Street, was unbelievable. So many people, senior citizens, for heaven's sake, venting their fury at the Government.
For the Government, the view from Leinster House was terrifying.
Walking sticks, Zimmer frames, wheelchairs. One man taped his message to a crutch and waved it in the air.
A group of women tried to get a chant going. "All de Marys out! All de Marys out!" At the main gate, a woman in a wheelchair watched proceedings, a placard resting on the tartan rug over her lap. She was a lovely sweet lady, and said she was 82 years of age and had come up from Cork.
At this stage, an ashen-faced Ciarán Cuffe of the Greens was at the microphone and battling a chorus of derision. "On yer bike!" sneered the crowd. "I am here to apologise," said Ciarán.
Whereupon the lady in the wheelchair, thoroughly incensed, took leave of her senses entirely.
"You are in your f***!" she roared.
"Oh, God forgive me."
They sent deputy Cuffe off with a flea in his ear.
The crowd could have stayed all day. But they had to make way for the students, who were also protesting.
Over at Leinster House, old student radicals were dreamily reliving their youth. What a day. There's life in the aul dogs yet! Thirty years ago, they said the seventies would be socialist.
Now, the socialists are 70.