Kenny bets on Clive but won’t joust with Vincent

THE woman looked towards Enda Kenny and exclaimed: “Oh, he’s gorgeous, he’s just adorable, I can’t wait to play with him!”

She was, of course, talking about Clive, a shaggy guide dog for autistic children who was on his hind legs and doing a kind of tango around a betting shop with the would-be Taoiseach.

A charity bet in a bookies in the shadow of the Dáil has become a staple of Irish elections, and it was on the very same spot that Bertie Ahern made a similar wager in 2007 — though Bertie’s reputation soon went to the dogs after he trotted out wins on the horses to try and explain all those unusual cash lodgements into his bank accounts at the Mahon corruption probe.