Bertie and Enda compete for Dáil’s class clown title

IRISH comedians have done very well at the Edinburgh Fringe over the years.

With only a couple of weeks to go to the annual comedy festival, an exciting new Irish talent has suddenly shot from, of all places, the ranks of our political class.

Until yesterday, this guy was best known for soaking the opposition with a constant horizontal drizzle of statistics that battered them into submission.

But a freak storm must have struck in the vicinity of St Luke’s yesterday and, to use an Ahernism, upset the apple cart.

For Bertie Ahern was inspired yesterday. Yep, some of his humour was completely unintentional but he will surely be in the running for the best one-line put-down of the year.

As it happened the debate was kind of about a freak storm - the one that damaged the National Aquatic Centre at the New Year - and the continuing storm of controversy that surrounds the manner in which it was built, and the way in which it was run.

Enda Kenny waded innocently into Ahern’s devastating one-liner.

“Can the Taoiseach explain who is responsible for the fact that the roof blew off this building?” he asked.

“The wind,” replied the Taoiseach, quick as a flash-flood.

I am very powerful, he went on to say, but nobody could begin to blame me for that one.

Shock horror. Taoiseach wows them all with Brian Cowen style one-liner. But the mirth seemed to be infectious. With the holidays just around the corner, the Fine Gael leader injected a fair bit of humour into his own opening salvoes.

“The debacle that is now the National Aquatic Centre truly is an apt metaphor for the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Government - massive costs to the public, a so-called state-of-the-art attraction that is all splash, with fake waves, the roof blown off and leaking like a sieve.”

Ahern’s initial reply was hilarious, but unintentionally so. True to not-that-funny Bertie of old, he listed off a rake of facts surrounding claims in the legal case.

We join him near the end of his list: “...failure to pay insurance on the building, failure to establish a sinking fund...”

Given this week’s news that millions of gallons of water have escaped from the centre, that last comment struck as suddenly as lightning.

The whole house erupted in laughter. Bernard Durkan chimed in: “Literally speaking. It has already sunk.”

At this stage, poor Seamus Brennan was doubled over with laughter.

“I am reading from the court order,” Mr Ahern protested weakly.

“The court jester,” chirped in Richard Bruton.