Miriam Lord: Can China understand a word that Mattie McGrath says?

When Dáil Éireann returned after the weekend break, rumour had it that there wasn’t a bronzing brush or drop of foundation to be had within a mile radius of Leinster House. No harm in slapping on a bit of make-up to look the best for the new audience in China.

An Oireachtas worker sidled up to us in the entrance hall.

“Ze valls haff ears,” he whispered, eyeing the ornamental plasterwork.

The walls?

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“Yes. Ze Dáil valls haff ears,” he repeated, in tones more redolent of Berlin than Beijing.

Recent claims that a superpower could be spying on Irish politicians through the extensive network of Chinese state-manufactured surveillance cameras around the parliamentary campus may be extremely serious, but they were also a major source of amusement on Tuesday.

In The Leinster House of Flying Daggers, do they listen in on the weekly parliamentary party meetings? Can they understand a word that Mattie McGrath says? Are they interested in the weapons-grade tedium? Do they monitor Shouting TDs, Hidden Deputies in the Members’ Bar?

It’s a worry.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello has been leading the charge against the Hikvision brand cameras, which have already been banned in a number of parliaments around the world. The potential threat to national security posed by these devices – an allegation strenuously denied by the manufacturers and the Chinese embassy in Dublin – may not yet be a major topic for discussion around Kildare Street. But, according to Dublin South Central’s Costello, the issue is resonating with the public.

“I spent the morning in Rialto and had several constituents raising concerns about the Chinese CCTV systems in Leinster House,” he tweeted on Monday.

But life goes on in Kildare Street, where the St Valentine’s Day festivities continued as normal in the Dáil canteen with pink paper hearts scattered around the displays and themed dishes on the menu. Dreamy Linguine, anyone? Romantic messages were pinned to the noticeboards and written in fancy writing on the glass above the hot food.

“Roses are red. Violets are blue. I’d love to be somewhere else. How about you?”

A deeply heartfelt sentiment appreciated by all.

Back in the chamber, where love doesn’t live any more, eye-watering figures were being bandied about.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald returned to the evergreen issue of the housing crisis and the high cost of renting. She said rent hikes in some counties were “frightening” with the average amount paid nationwide standing at €1,733 a month and tenants in Dublin forking out an average of €2,293.

It costs €4,000 to rent on Carnlough Road in Cabra. Get a grip

—  Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin

People were being charged “extortionate sums” and the situation was not improving, she said, citing the case of newly built three-bedroom apartments in her Dublin Central constituency which are available for nearly €4,000 a month.

“That’s €48,000 for a year. Just for rent.”

And then Mary Lou did the box-office bit, or in this case her shoebox office routine, producing photocopies of adverts for rental properties and waving them at the Taoiseach.

The grim accommodation on offer was “beyond a joke”, she declared, brandishing the blurb for a bunk bed in a small room with three others (€625 a month) followed by a photo of a parking-space sized room with a pull down bed (€1,880 a month) and a bedroom with use of the kitchen and utility room but with the rest of the house in Kildare off limits (€1,100 a month).

“This is soul-destroying stuff.”

Leo Varadkar accepted that rents were very high and many people were struggling to keep up their payments before setting out a long list of helpful measures the Government had implemented.

“Come off it,” snorted Mary Lou. “It costs €4,000 to rent on Carnlough Road in Cabra. Get a grip.”

Those rental figures are shocking but the numbers paled in comparison to those introduced by Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall. She too focused on the cost-of-living crisis, turning her attention to soaring energy bills.

Did the Chinese cameras pick up the mass stampede of Sinn Féin TDs from the chamber as soon as their leader sat down and Róisín began to speak? It happens every time at Leaders’ Questions. The spymasters in Beijing must be fascinated by the process.

“As consumers suffer, energy companies are profiteering and making what can only be described as obscene profits,” said Róisín, calling for a targeted price cap and the immediate introduction of a windfall tax on the companies.

“Why is this Government dithering?” she asked.

Leo was happy to respond, falling just short of saying he was glad she had asked that question. He agreed that energy companies would make very big profits this year, having already raked in plenty last year. “In very many cases, they will make profits they never thought they could make… That’s not fair, not right or okay, and we will act on it.”

He had hot news to impart. The Government can bring in a system to take a “special dividend” from State-run operations and when it comes to private companies “we will have a windfall tax”.

The Taoiseach said it was still all a bit hush-hush, but Eamon Ryan filled everyone in on the plan at the morning’s Cabinet meeting. “But I will say that plans are very well advanced and hundreds of millions of euro will come in from a windfall tax on energy companies.”

This is money which hasn’t been factored into this year’s budget, and the tax on profits will be retrospective, taking in last year’s lolly as well. “It really is only a matter of weeks away,” he went on.

Loadsamoney will be available to spend over and above the Coalition’s official budget calculations. After it has rubbed Sinn Féin’s nose in its humungous windfall, the Government will use this money to help people struggling to cope with increased living costs.

Happy days!

“Hundreds of millions of euro!”

The boom times are back, baby.

And Bertie is only back in Fianna Fáil a week.

What a guy.

Meanwhile, there are unconfirmed reports that the Army unit permanently stationed at Government Buildings was called to the canteen after suspicious balloons were observed floating in the vicinity of the gratin potatoes and the purple Snacks. They were more than likely part of the Valentine’s Day decorations.

But given the growing controversy over the Hikvision surveillance cameras in the building and recent events in the US and Canada, it was decided to take no chances and snipers eventually shot them down over the salad counter.