Fresh from their Christmas break, TDs and Ministers knuckled down in the Dáil for nearly 2½ months. They must be delighted now to be embarking on a two-week Easter break.
The Taoiseach is exhausted from all the foreign travel. The Tánaiste is exhausted from the effort it takes to maintain a low profile. The leader of Sinn Féin is exhausted from shouting “do-nothing Government” at lethargic lawmakers.
The United Left is exhausted trying to cling to the unity left over from Catherine Connolly’s election as President late last year.
The Lowry Independents are exhausted from trying to extract tasty local concessions from the Government they pledged to support. The independent Independents are exhausted complaining about everyone else.
The Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cheann Comhairle are exhausted trying to put manners on the lot of them.
They need a rest. So, as is customary when the Dáil breaks after its first sitting of the year, a few end-of-term Easter awards seem in order.
Good Egg
Senator Aubrey McCarthy, who forgave the man jailed this week for threatening to kill him and the chief executive of Tiglin, the homeless and addiction charity founded by the businessman. “I believe in the power of compassion,” he said, resolving to fight harder for mental health reform.
The Great Eggscape
This is a two-yolks award, jointly shared by former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, who was Never a Member of the IRA, and former Fine Gael minister and now Independent TD Michael Lowry.
Lowry was delighted with the DPP’s finding earlier this month that he has no criminal case to answer arising from the findings of the Moriarty tribunal. He has consistently disputed the findings of the tribunal but has never initiated any legal challenge, as he is perfectly entitled to do.
Among its many findings, the tribunal found that the then-minister had imparted information to businessman Denis O’Brien which was “of significant value and assistance to him in securing” the State’s lucrative second mobile phone licence in 1995.
Successful Nest-Egg Hunt
It lasted over a tumultuous week early in the Dáil year and ended with the Government eventually turning over a little tussock in the State and finding a handy €19 million underneath it. This was used to pay for the special needs assistants (SNAs) it insisted had very definitely not been cut from schools that were up in arms because they lost their SNAs.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris both admitted measures to divert valued SNAs to posts where they were most needed had been poorly communicated. As their backbenchers fumed over the furious reaction from local schools and parents, Government leaders held a late-night meeting and “paused” the plan for the foreseeable future.
Micheál, a former teacher and minister for education, was particularly put out by the furore over a well-intentioned but poorly executed plan.
“I was the minister who introduced SNAs, so don’t lecture me!” he thundered in the Dáil.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin reminded the Dáil of his role in introducing special needs assistants. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times Best Easter Egg Hunt – Is it over yet?
Three weeks after a judge ordered their arrest and committal to prison, mother and daughter Martina and Ammi Burke, of the well-known evangelical Christian family from Mayo, have still not been located and jailed.
In the High Court earlier this month, Judge Brian Cregan found the women guilty of contempt “in the face of the court” over their “roaring and shouting” and “intense and venomous” interruptions that led to the suspension of an earlier hearing.
The elusive Mammy and Ammi were still at large at the time of writing.
While gardaí say they will execute the arrest warrant in due course, a local source told The Irish Times this week: “You are not dealing with violent people, or people who are a security risk. There’s no danger to the community with this one.”
Easter Enterprise Awards
Another good year for independent Senator Rónán Mullen, whose annual Easter egg sale was a triumph. In the final week, staunch anti-abortion activist Rónán went around Leinster House selling little Creme Eggs (unfertilised) swaddled in cute knitted hens made by local women from his parish in east Galway.
He sold out his entire stock and raised €1,700 to help the work of three missionaries in Africa.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin has a varied selection of Easter lily-themed hats, badges and trinkets for sale in its online shop. The most expensive item is a flat cap with a little green, white and orange lily on the side.
Aontú has a varied selection of tin lily badges on its party website, €3 a pop.
Duracell Bunny
This award goes to the indefatigable Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit, who has bounced back from his recent brush with cancer and is roaring to tremendous effect again in the Dáil.
Earlier this week, he put in a heroic performance between the posts during a tense seven-a-side international in the grounds of the Belgian ambassador’s residence on Ailesbury Road, when an Oireachtas selection took on a team of diplomats from French-speaking countries.
The francophones won 5-4, but the margin would have been wider had it not been for the ball-stopping skills of the “cat-like” RBB in goal.
The Kildare Street Dynamos were captained by player-manager Trinity Senator Lynn Ruane, and included Rory Hearne (Social Democrats), Ciarán Ahern (Labour) and Brian Brennan (Fine Gael).
People Before Profit–Solidarity TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, has recovered from illness and is again making his presence felt on issues. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins Photos Easter (and holy days of obligation or otherwise) Bonnet Award
Mairead McGuinness gets the nod here. Didn’t see this one coming, but it is actually a thing.
The former EU commissioner, who had to withdraw as Fine Gael’s candidate in the presidential election due to a serious illness, has just been appointed as the EU’s special envoy on religious freedom.
As is the case with RBB, you just can’t keep a good woman down.
Sulky Bunny
There’s never a dull moment with the Minister for Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan, who’s had a lively start to his political year.
The TD for Limerick County threw a huge hissy fit when Dundalk FC’s lovely new pitch, installed with the help of a whopping grant from his department, was badly damaged on the night it was officially opened when fans from local rivals Drogheda threw flares on to the pristine astroturf.
O’Donovan, who did the opening honours, was outraged. “It was like an air raid,” he declared, denouncing this act of “tuggery” (sic) and “gougerism” before stroppily announcing in the aftermath that the State would be suspending funding for astro pitches around the country unless the issue of “hooliganism” was addressed.
The episode found its way to the floor of the Dáil, with Labour’s Duncan Smith blasting his “vengeful, over-the-top, collective punishment response” which he believed betrayed the Minister’s “anti-football bias”.
Not where the GAA is concerned – O’Donovan recently installed former Croke Park kingpin and GAA stalwart Peter McKenna as chair of the National Concert Hall.
Apparently the Minister is actively considering a cultural exchange with the northside, with the Artane Boys Band doing Sunday matinees in Earlsfort Terrace and the National Symphony Orchestra marching around after the Limerick hurlers.
“The culchiefication of the Orts continues apace,” remarked a Merrion Street culture vulture upon hearing the news.
Top Bunny
For pulling a rabbit from a hat and winning praise from these shores and beyond for his quietly effective and dignified handling of the barking US president during their much-anticipated Oval Office meeting on St Patrick’s Day, Taoiseach Micheál Martin unexpectedly emerges as top bunny.
He stood up for his UK counterpart Keir Starmer as Donald Trump continued to blackguard the UK prime minister, to whom he has taken a huffy dislike.
“He has done a lot to reset the Irish-British relationship, I just want to put that on the record,” said Micheál, who had hosted Keir at a summit in Cork a few days earlier.
“I do believe that he’s a very earnest, sound person you have a capacity to get on with, you’ve got on with him before,” soft-soaped the Taoiseach to the highly impressionable Trump.
He also stood up for Europe as “still a very good place to live” as Trump went on about the UK and other European countries allowing “millions and millions of people to come into your country that shouldn’t be there”.
Europe is sometimes “characterised wrongly in terms of it being overrun” replied Micheál gently, stressing he is on the side of peace while stopping short of riling his host over his illegal warmongering.
The ‘He’s No Micheál Martin’ Award
This goes to the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who sat deferentially and mainly silent in the Oval Office while US president Trump dismissed Keir Starmer as “not Winston Churchill”, criticised Spain for condemning US strikes on Iran and threatened to escalate his trade war with Europe.
There is no Easter Bunny gong for Donald Trump, but he’s the runaway winner of our Mad as a March Hare award.
Happy Bunny
That has to be former Fine Gael minister for finance Paschal Donohoe, who is now the managing director of the World Bank, based in Washington.
There was no sign of him when the big Irish contingent, led by the Taoiseach, landed in town for the St Patrick’s Day jamboree. Paschal was in Ghana, on bank business.