It’s a pity they don’t have saloon bar-style doors at the entrance to the Dáil chamber.
Carol Nolan could have pushed through them at high noon on Wednesday, shoe buckles a-clinkin’ and a mean look in her eyes.
She took her seat in the back row and waited.
Finally.
“I call on Deputy Carol Nolan,” tinkled the piano player, Verona Murphy. She is backed by government big guns. Nobody crosses Verona and wins.
The place went quiet.
Deputy Nolan stood up. Real slow.
The deppities opposite took one look at her and fled, leaving their papers and notes behind them.
A few government buckaroos squawked their disapproval as Mary Lou and her boys made for the double doors to the right of the piano player.
Michael Collins and his compadres moseyed smartly in the same direction.
And the Bacik gang shimmied simultaneously up the stairs, head honcho Ivana leading them briskly towards the upper exit.
Not a sound out of any of them.
There’s a new gunslinger in town.
And, by the looks of it, as welcome as a rattlesnake at a square dance.
Time to get out of Dodge…
Fair enough. Maybe it wasn’t that exciting when most of the Opposition staged a silent walkout the moment Carol kicked off their most loathed aspect of the Government’s speaking rights ready-up.
This is the wheeze whereby signed-up independent supporters of the Coalition’s programme for government can now piggyback on Opposition Leaders’ Questions in a new slot called “Other Members Questions”.
Selecting the Offaly TD as inaugural speaker was a clever choice as she is not a member of a Government party or a member of the Michael Lowry-led Regional Independent Group that supports it.
Carol may be a member of the Dáil, but she is also a woman, which means she cannot be roared at for too long because this could constitute misogyny.
A reprise of last week’s roaring and shouting explosion was highly unlikely.
There may have been some disappointment on the press gallery when word went around that Lowry would not be taking the reins for this historic, maiden gallop of the Udders.
But joy was unconfined in the Leinster House 2000 annex where a team from the Irish Heart Foundation had set up shop offering free blood-pressure checks to politicians and staff. Had Lowry fronted up for D’Udders, Opposition stress levels would have melted the medics’ monitors.
Deputy Nolan asked a question about therapy supports for special schools in Laois and Offaly. During the last Dáil, she would have participated in Leaders’ Questions as a member of the Rural Independents. On Wednesday she spoke as one of just three members of the Combined Udders who are bona-fide Opposition members.
Three political parties and two technical groups left in quiet protest.
A few members of the Social Democrats remained in their seats along with Soc Dem in exile Eoin Hayes, former Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, who is aligned to the Independent Alliance Group, and Donegal mica redress TD Charles Ward.
As demos go, they made their point. But the drama of the walkout lost its potency because Government backbenchers were also bailing out, the empty benches on all sides signalling that business in the chamber has more or less returned to normal.
After the first Udder Members segment went off without a voice raised in protest and Verona was about to start Questions on Promised Legislation, the missing Opposition TDs slipped swiftly back into their places, point made.
This was not the time to be making any sort of major fuss, what with Leinster House on tenterhooks over gloomy expectations of Trump tariffs to come by the end of the day and tit-for-tat tariffs expected from Europe in the aftermath.
“Without question, this is the most serious issue to face the Irish economy in a long time and it’s clear the scale of these tariffs will be very, very significant in European terms,” the Taoiseach said.
There was no attempt to sweeten the pill as he told Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald: “We are in an era of increased protectionism. That is not good for Ireland. This is not good for open economies.”
Micheál Martin outlined what sectors of the Irish economy could be most affected and said it was important for Europe to stay calm and get to the negotiating table.
Above all, “the bottom line” is to get this situation “into a sustainable landing zone for the future”. Micheál also mentioned this “landing zone” during the previous day’s Leaders’ Questions.
People of a certain age will shudder a little at his choice of analogy. Before the economy crashed and burned in the late noughties, politicians and business leaders kept a lid on the rising panic by promising people there would be “a soft landing” at the end of the uncertainty.
But the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, who was listening intently as Micheál gave his answers, would be keen to assure people that this landing zone is in a different field.
Mary Lou was keen to have a Dáil debate on the impending crisis and she called on Micheál to convene a meeting of all party leaders from across the House.
“I think this needs to happen as a matter of urgency.”
Given what he had to say about the Opposition on Tuesday night during the motion of confidence on Verona Murphy (he wiped the floor with Sinn Féin and didn’t hold back on the other parties calling on the Ceann Comhairle to consider her position), one would have thought he was in no humour to sit down and hold a meeting with them.
Micheál was relaxed and happy with the world after venting against the Opposition in the chamber with such gusto
And then after his vigorous savaging of the Opposition for having the temerity to call his Government’s speaking rights stroke an actual stroke, Micheál had to go back to his office in Government Buildings and call his chosen cohort of Fianna Fáil senators to tell them which spokesperson brief he was giving them.
That must have wrecked his head entirely.
But he was relaxed and happy with the world after venting against the Opposition in the chamber with such gusto.
Of course they could have their meeting, he told Mary Lou. Although he suggested it would make sense to let the hare sit to find out what tariffs will be imposed by the US side and then wait for the EU’s initial response.
And he has no issue with a Dáil debate either.
We ran into Micheál after he left the chamber. Where would he be for the big announcement from Trump at 9pm Irish time? Perhaps somewhere he can enjoy a strong, steadying thimble of dandelion juice and a nice lentil canapé?
“I work late every night. Sure, I’ll be above in the office watching it.”
And hiding from those FF senators who didn’t get a call.
