SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of political asides with JOHN DRENNAN

■ THE publication by Fine Gael of Proud To Serve – a history of women in the party – offers an intriguing vignette of times past. During a cabinet meeting on food subsidies in the grim 1980s, Gemma Hussey recalled: ‘Jim Mitchell, a very nice man, said let’s get some facts and figures here. Gemma, how much is a pound of rashers?’ Thentaoiseach Garret FitzGerald indignantly asked Mitchell: ‘How would this woman know any more about the price of rashers than you?’

■ PAUL REID raised a few eyebrows at the weekly HSE press briefing on Thursday. When asked by our sister newspaper the Irish Daily Mail if he had received the vaccine yet, he paused before saying ‘no’. The HSE press office later said the dramatic pause was for comedic effect. Boom, boom!

■ SMOKES was impressed by Eoghan Murphy’s queries to Leo over ‘the length of time shops selling essential items including children’s clothes, which are not easily purchased online, can remain closed without having a disproportionately negative impact on young families’. Losing ministerial office, we thought, has helped in restoring the connection of Garret’s godchild to reality.

■ SMOKES noted the request by PAC chairman Brian Stanley, of Sinn Féin, to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, pictured, for his Department to consider ‘bringing forward the vaccination of prison staff’. We are pretty sure that few among the Portlaoise prison officer staff ever thought that Sinn Féin would be advocates for their rights and benefits.

■ THE decision by Simon Harris to crack the whip when it comes to how our thirdlevel dons misbehave has apparently caused no small degree of unhappiness. The mood was summarised by one source who nostalgically noted of the famous Michael Caine film about a boozy academic who finds love in Trinity that ‘the days of Educating Rita are over’. They are indeed, dons, and the happiest person of all about that is Rita.