If he was a man under pressure, Leo Varadkar wasn’t showing it during a leisurely visit to St Joseph’s College in the Dublin suburb of Lucan.

There was a whiff of desperation about the abuse heaped on Sinn Féin and its economic plan by Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe, their denunciations echoing around the City Assembly rooms yesterday morning.

A great man for the one-liners is our Micheál. As we prepared to quiz him about their TV encounter and Leo Varadkar’s car crash response to that illegal drug question (some cannabis in college but that was a long time ago) the Fianna Fáil leader was unexpectedly wreathed in smoke from a nearby ventilation system.