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THE DÁIL WELCOMED its newest member this afternoon as Fianna Fáil’s Bobby Aylward took his seat for Carlow-Kilkenny.
It was a rare bit of good news for the party after an eventful 24 hours with the resignation of Averil Power and a party activist in Cork over the party’s marriage referendum campaign.
Aylward’s election in the early hours of last Sunday morning was Fianna Fáil’s first by-election win 19 years and its first in opposition in over four decades.
As the new deputy arrived in the chamber there was applause and then a series of good-natured exchanges.
It’s fair to say there was a serious amount of shade thrown across the chamber by several members:
First, Martin noted that Aylward’s constituency colleague John McGuinness – who went on holiday in the middle of the campaign – “worked particularly hard” to get him elected.
The ribbing of McGuinness wasn’t over.
Enda Kenny advised Aylward not to take too much advice from McGuinness “because you’ll be away all the time”.
Then Labour’s Kathleen Lynch, with a nod to Fianna Fáil’s women troubles, said she was there to “inject a little bit of gender balance” into the debate.
Speaking for the Technical Group, Finian McGrath said it had been “a bad day yesterday in Dublin Bay North” – a nod to local senator Averil Power’s resignation from Fianna Fáil.
He joked that there was a seat beside him if Aylward ever got “a bit wobbly on any issues”.
McGuinness’s roasting wasn’t over.
Fine Gael’s Pat Deering said he looked forward to seeing the PAC chairman campaigning “hand-in-hand” with Aylward at the next election.
But then it was McGuinness’s turn.
He noted he was the only member of the Dáil who nominated Aylward to be the Fianna Fáil candidate in the by-election.
Then he hit out at Fine Gael’s own internal problems in Carlow-Kilkenny where former IFA chief John Bryan had failed to win the nomination.
But the teasing for McGuinness wasn’t over.
Fine Gael’s John Paul Phelan noted Aylward had got a tan on the highways and byways of the Carlow-Kilkenny campaign trail unlike others sitting close to him “who got their tans elsewhere”.
There was another outbreak of chuckling in the chamber, before Phelan dryly concluded: “It’s not a day for party politics.”
Indeed.
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Any chance of not treating The Dail like a boys club and doing some work?
It’s just banter and Enda’s the archbishop of banterbury
Bantersaures Rex is Enda
How about doing an article on TTIP Journal as opposed to some saps patting each others backs or has Mr Redacted prevented you from doing stories on it?
what like informative journalism?,
when hugh(political editor) wants his opinion he rings fg hq to see if its ready to download.
still waiting for an answer to did he supply enda with the questions before the interview
You’ll get a good piece or two on TTIP on arstechnica.co.uk. There are some questionable parts to it, but a lot of it actually makes sense.
Great to see them working hard debating the important things.
Welcome to the trough boyee…oink…oink!!
You mean welcome back on board the gravy train ya boya !
Hopefully he can prevent water charges from happening. Otherwise it’s just one big waste of time.
Would you ever give it a rest. That issue is over. Dail decision. End of.
Hey Hugh O`Connell from the Journal.
Any chance you will do a piece on Catherine Murphy TD Trying to ask the “ginger ninja” edna a question today during leaders questions? And getting nowhere?
Maybe you could include the fact that she had her microphone turned off and was being told to sit down and resume her seat, By Clown comhairle Barrett today when she mentioned KPMG, and the fact that they were investigating themselves in the Whole Siteserv shambles ??
I`ll refresh the page in about an hour, Just hop on to your speed dial list and look up FG HQ`s phone number, give them a quick buzz to see if it`s ok.
And I`ll come back to see if you have gotten the finger out and written one by then
They’ll be joking about the antics today in the dail bar for years to come. Great craic altogether.
FFG encore une fois, ennui. Groundhog Day. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Welcome to dystopia. Dissapointed.
Hey Gary, you will be paying for water, deal with it. Stop whinging on the journal every day thinking that it is gonna change the mind set of a politician!
Jesus Lads Ye all take yereselves too seriously! I thought It was some enjoyable banter. You are allowed to have a bit of banter at work you know!
Tadhg – its different when the jokes at our expense which it is.
One word – SiteServ.
I stand corrected Paul Mc, I thought he was FG…same thing I suppose! :)
I give him my 4th choice. Anyway we had a shocking selection to choose from.
FF will feed off transfers….if you don’t want them at all….don’t give them preferences. FF need to die.
So this guy probably had a pension. I hope it’s been suspended. If he loses his seat next year will he then have to wait until he is 65 before he can start claiming again? No wonder he had to think long and hard before running again!
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