Insults hurled across the Dail as election fever takes hold of TDs

Election fever took a tight hold of the Dáil yesterday as formal discussions were replaced by insults hurled across the floor of the chamber.

Tánaiste Joan Burton

Amid charges of histrionics, cuckoo land hysteria and orders to shut up, the chamber descended into farce once again as leaders’ questions became a slagging match rather than a debate about national matters.

Giddy TDs look all too eager to cut and run and get on with the election. And as Tánaiste Joan Burton took leaders’ questions, boyish bickering again broke out.

Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen wanted answers over what will be done for mortgage owners while Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald deemed the latest rent measures a failure.

Mr Cowen reiterated the claim the Coalition is fattening up, for sale, State-owned AIB at the expense of borrowers who are paying higher mortgage interest rates than most Europeans.

“What have you done about it? Sweet FA,” quipped the Laois-Offaly TD.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald

Cowen proceeded to shout across the chamber, demanding the Tánaiste answer his queries.

“With all respect, would this woman answer a question,” he declared, a comment which raised the eyebrows of a few correspondents in the media gallery overhead.

But Ms Burton was taking none of the bullish chatter. “Anger is not a policy,” the Labour leader fired back.

Enough of the histrionics, she added, telling the outspoken TD that his outbursts belonged on the Abbey stage.

“If you want an answer, you have to shut up for a while,” she declared.

Tánaiste Joan Burton

Ms McDonald said Labour had done “far too little, much too late” on rent controls, particularly amid spiralling rates in the capital where tenants are paying on average over €1,400 a month.

Local authorities and councillors were refusing construction projects for “spurious” reasons, complained the Tánaiste, as she insisted councils had received the largest amount in funds ever.

But this didn’t pacify Sinn Féin’s deputy leader. “Your housing policy is nothing more than waffle, rhetoric, recycled statements…” claimed Ms McDonald.

Then the TDs let loose.

Mr Cowen called the Tánaiste “deluded”, adding: “You’ve gone cuckoo, you’re in la la land…”

In the Twilight Zone of the Dáil, nothing surprises.

“Are you a baby?” returned Burton as the insults escalated. “He needs his afternoon nap.”