SMOKES & DAGGERS

DÁIL politics is complicated. We were intrigued to discover there is even a Committee of the Working Group of Committee Chairpersons. Sadly, the various chairpersons were unable to shed any light on what this committee actually does. OVERHEARD by courts reporter Conor Gallagher, this court exchange made us chuckle. Barrister: ‘I believe McCormack was found with 258 kilograms of heroin.’ Garda: ‘Em, no, 258 grams.’ Accused: ‘I didn’t have a f***ing lorry.’ RTÉ’s Will Goodbody, pictured, tweeted intriguingly this week: ‘Facebook announces new measures to combat “revenue porn”.’ Six minutes later he corrected his tweet to ‘revenge porn’. For those six minutes, we were left with the horrifying thought that Will had a line on some Russian Kompromat on Michael Noonan… SMOKES hears Government Press Secretary Feargal Purcell was warned by political correspondents this week that the Government shouldn’t pull its usual trick of releasing the Fennelly report at 8.45pm on a Friday. So the corrs were delighted when the report arrived early on Thursday. The delight swiftly eroded when they realised there wasn’t a story to be found in the 700-plus pages of legal porridge; which, presumably, is why it arrived early on Thursday. SPEAKING of Mr Purcell, his press office has twice ignored questions over whether his €115,000 salary has been increased in line with the public service pay rises, and if it has whether he, like his bosses, intends to gift the money back. QUESTIONS from Catherine Murphy revealed this week that Sports Minister Shane Ross will shortly meet the new Olympic Council of Ireland president. We can only hope it will go better than his previous meeting, which ended with Minister Ross being sent off with a flea in his ear and the then president ending up in a Brazilian jailhouse.