Hurricane Mary crosses Atlantic to brew up a storm
But, of course, not from bothering the Florida tees, as Ms Hanafin valiantly forswore a round of golf during her trip to the sunshine state last week.
A visit she modestly insisted was “in the national interest” and therefore worth missing a vote on the Government’s shabby treatment of autistic pupils for.
Still smarting from the attacks her transatlantic jaunt engendered, her mood was as dark as the indigo jacket she was sporting as she hit the lower house with the force of steel — and those killer heels looked ready to, er, kill.
As Hurricane Hanafin bore down on the ministerial front row, Willie O’Dea appeared to quiver. Luckily the natural defences of his wind-breaker moustache proved just enough to repel the whirlwind and keep his tippy toes on the ground as Ms Hanafin blew herself out on touchdown next to him.
Unfortunately, Mary O’Rourke, Ms Hanafin’s fiercest critic over autism on the Government benches, was absent from Leader’s Questions and thus the path of wrath laid waste by the Education Minister, so the public gallery was spared the chance of seeing Mary and Mary acting quite contrary in front of them.
It was a shame, because Enda Kenny had an open goal with the autism row — the Government was divided, the Fianna Fáil backbenchers were turning ugly (not difficult) and deeply emotive stories of families fighting against the hard hearted attitudes of the Education Department were filling the media.
How could the Fine Gael leader fail? He raced at the undefended net with the zeal of an older, blonder, slightly less agile Ronaldo.
He shoots! He misses! He rambles on about “quality bus corridors”! The crowd groans “You loser!” and begins to wonder if maybe even Stan the Man could have made a better manager of political priorities.
Then, 10 minutes into the gripping subject, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey finally turns up just like a Dublin bus — late and spouting airborne pollution.
Enda refuses to be swayed by the minister’s heckling and everyone else in the chamber behaves just like its another trip on the 77a — knowing the journey must surely end at some point, but just wishing the misery would be over soon.
After the bus bonanza Labour’s Eamon Gilmore went off on drugs, but the Taoiseach was barely rattled by the ensuing argy-bargy.
Bertie had the air of FF’s Fidel about him as he batted away opposition barbs showing that unlike Mr Castro, he has no intention of passing over power without a struggle.
The Taoiseach has so far survived his own Bay of Pigs — the Bay of Dig Outs — and though the economy is going off the boil and his regime is under siege, the Bertie revolution will not be abandoned.
The CIA launched around 600 attempts to rid the world of Fidel, including plots to blow him up with a cigar and poison him so his beard would fall out and thus make Cubans turn against him.
Those ideas sound almost plausible compared with the attempts to get rid of Bertie launched by Enda and Ireland’s very own CIA — the Consistently Irrelevant Alternative.
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