Brendan Howlin*

MY WEEK

MONDAY: People often ask me if I am disappointed to finally achieve my ambition of becoming Labour leader at a time when the party is so small, irrelevant and out of touch.

What I always reply is that if small, irrelevant and out of touch is what you’re after, then I’m your man.

Did you read the interview with me in today’s Irish Times? I only ask because no one’s mentioned it to me yet, so I wondered if it actually appeared.

I haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy yet, but I thought the phone would be hopping off the hook.

Note to younger voters: Phones used to come on hooks when I was a fresh face in Irish politics.

Who’d have guessed back then I would one day be the man who put the final nail in Labour’s coffin? Good times, good times. Still no calls? No? Strange. I’ll get someone in to check the line. I don’t mind waiting in for a workman to call. I haven’t got much on anyway.

TUESDAY: I rise early for the weekly Cabinet meeting, only to suddenly remember — my diary is now emptier than Alan Kelly’s list of supporters during the leadership battle.

I wonder if they’ll be having the chocolate Hobnobs? I used to love it when we had those. “Have another one,” Michael Noonan would say as he held out the plate with that little twinkle in his eye. “Go on, be a devil.”

Crossly, I dash off a press release berating the first 200 days of this “do nothing Government”. It’s not like when we were in power with Fine Gael. We were always doing things. The wrong things, usually, but it’s the thought that counts.

Afterwards, I call my colleagues round for an impromptu meeting in my office. It’s little bigger than a broom cupboard these days, but we all fit in snuggly. I send one of the interns out for biscuits, but she comes back with Custard Creams. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. I hate Custard Creams. Michael Noonan and I were absolutely agreed on that, as on so many other things.

We never used to have fights like they’re doing today over Sinn Fein’s upcoming bill to enshrine neutrality in the Constitution. Members of the Independent Alliance want the right to a free vote.

I’m shocked. We never asked for anything like that.

Or for anything at all, come to think of it.

I also have a go at Shane Ross for criticising judges instead of concentrating on doing his own job. He hasn’t even made all the necessary State board appointments, which he should have finalised months ago.

That’s easy when you’re in Labour, as so many of our people lose elections that there are always plenty of candidates looking for a consolation prize.

I even compare the Sports Minister to Donald Trump, who’s now the most powerful man in the world after getting 62 million people to vote for him. I think this is a great insult, but Labour should be so lucky.

I hear someone in the Dail canteen muttering that my bitching about the Government increasingly makes me sound like a bitter, obsessed ex-boyfriend who can’t get over the fact that his former partner now has a new love and no longer needs him.

Haters gonna hate. They just don’t understand what we had together.

WEDNESDAY: Someone has slipped a copy of a book under the door of my office in Leinster House. It’s called How To Let Go Of A Past Relationship And Move On.

I open it and start reading. It’s not as if I have anything else to do.

The first rule is: “Forgive yourself for the mistakes of the past.” That’s not a problem. The Labour Party has always been remarkably quick to forgive itself for its regular litany of mistakes.

If only the Irish people were as understanding.

The second says: “Remember the bad as well as the good.”

I sit for a moment, recalling that time when the Army was on the verge of being called in to protect the banks, but it’s hard to remember something that didn’t happen because it was just a figment of Enda Kenny’s imagination.

I’ll try the next one. Here it is: “Reconnect with who you really are outside the relationship.”

I’ve certainly been trying. We launched #LabourRebuild but I couldn’t bear to look at our social media feed because it was mainly used by people to take the mickey out of us for being obsolete.

Finally: “Remember the benefits of moving on.”

I wish I could, but how can I when there aren’t any?

At least in government I got to keep my dignity. Now when I ask to join the gang on the opposition benches, they all laugh and say I’m like an awkward uncle at parties trying to get down with the cool kids by saying how I much I dig that new hippity-hop music when everyone knows I’d rather be at home listening to opera and dreaming of Hobnobs.

THURSDAY: We’ve decided to support Sinn Fein’s bill on Irish neutrality.

It’s an outrage that this island is used as a base to send troops to foreign wars, as I made clear when offering my full support to Mick Wallace and Clare Daly after they were arrested last year breaking into Shannon to protest against the US using it as a stop-off en route to the Middle East.

What’s that? You don’t remember me backing Ireland’s answer to Statler and Waldorf to the hilt?

You’ll be saying next that you don’t remember me vigorously opposing government cuts on the poorest in society.

FRIDAY: The other day I called on the Government to get on with tackling “issues of great substance”.

Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys shows the way by demanding RTE reverses its decision to outsource future children’s TV.

We couldn’t save thousands from emigrating, but I’m sure we can save Dustin the Turkey.

I call Michael Noonan to see if we can get cross-party support for a campaign. “Brendan who?” he says. I’ve been in Labour all my life. I’m used to rejection.