An early Valentine’s love-in with their leader

PAT Rabbitte should have hit the Helix Theatre stage like a cross between an ageing American rock star and a Southern gospel preacher.

He certainly had the script for it: “Hey, Ireland! How you doin’? You happy? I said Are You Happy? Let me hear you say ‘No’!” or words to that effect at any rate.

Unsurprisingly the audience, not overly fond of the Government to begin with, became ever more unhappy, furious indeed, as Mr Rabbitte painted a grim vision of today’s rotten Republic where people dodge gun battles as they trudge between filthy hospitals and overcrowded schools on “gilded treadmills” (which Transport Minister Martin Cullen is probably planning to toll or privatise anyway).