Dáil row shows logic to be Enda’s latest cutback

THERE Enda went again, shutting down yet another A and E — but this time it was his own personal Apology and Embarrassment Department that was getting the chop.

The Taoiseach, or Dr Do-Little-But-U-Turns as he is now becoming known, diagnosed an acute case of “confusion” for the outbreak of outrage in Roscommon.

However, his own memory loss, followed by a severe credibility strain, was probably nearer the mark as Mr Kenny again failed to talk himself out of the mess his election outbursts had got himself into.

After denying he had ever promised to keep Roscommon emergency department (ED) open if he won the election, the emergence of a tape recording of him, er, promising to keep Roscommon ED open if he won the election, did not seem to phase him as he performed a bizarre self-amputation, removing all logic at Leaders’ Questions by insisting he had only been spouting party policy and not making a personal pledge on the issue — as if the two were somehow different.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin did not buy the split political personality defence and insisted that Fine Gael had been intent on promising anything in order to land the two Roscommon seats they had targeted for an overall Dáil majority in February.

But Mr Martin could not help giving a back-handed compliment to this “crass but effective” election strategy — which was, of course, in marked contrast to his own crass but ineffective Fianna Fáil strategy.

The opposition were keen to paint Enda as Dr Killmore, insisting the U-turn on Roscommon would put lives in danger, but Mr Kenny was still self-medicating confusion and having none of it.

Indeed, Enda had taken such a personal interest in what was going on in Roscommon he announced that he had even checked the registration numbers of the ambulances that would now bypass Roscommon Hospital when they ferried dangerously ill people to other parts of the midlands and west.

Why Mr Kenny had bothered to get into this level of minutiae was not immediately clear, but no doubt having the registration numbers will make it easier for Fine Gael to chase such ambulances at the next election when they are desperately trying to gather up votes.

It was all too much for Socialist TD Joe Higgins, who, after branding Mr Kenny a “contemptible figure”, seemed to suffer a massive overdose of metaphor as he laid into the Taoiseach’s claim that watchdogs HIQA had changed the game by finding hospitals like Roscommon unsafe.

In an extraordinary rush of blood to the head, Mr Higgins declared: “Fine Gael policy is your new flexible friend to fit all occasions — the new Fine Gael brand of pantyhose to cover every possible emergency and every size and form of emergency.”

Enda and Health Minister James Reilly in pantyhose? Now that mental image really would be enough to make you feel ill.

And just when you thought things could not get any stranger, Michael Healy-Rae got to his feet and demanded the Dáil held an emergency debate on phone hacking to ensure that official lines were not being “interfered with” here.

Yes, that Healy-Rae who gave the state €2,600 to cover the costs of premium rate calls emanating from an Oireachtas member’s office in 2007 which helped him win the Celebrities Go Wild reality show — despite his insistence that he and his family knew nothing about it.

At that moment, irony lay dead on the floor of the chamber and the House erupted in laughter.

Nurse, the screens!