SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of political asides with JOHN DRENNAN

THOSE FG TDs who fear Leo is becoming a little detached from the fray will not have had their fears calmed by his admission this week he didn’t know what the magic number (88) was. In fairness to Leo, right, he did confess: ‘I should know this shouldn’t I?’ Well, it would certainly calm his nervous party.

SMOKES is relieved to hear the ‘benching’ of colourful Attorney General Rossa Fanning went off without incident on Friday. Some affairs involving Fine Gael barristers can be quite boisterous, with gardaí being called to an event in 2018 when King’s Inns threw a ‘benching’ bash for Séamus Woulfe, the then legal adviser to the Government.

IN an accidental act of public service on the secondmost important event of the political year, the Oireachtas IT unit managed to collapse internet access for much of the media. Amid attempts to fix the debacle, which increasingly resembled the travails of Lucky O’Reilly in Fawlty Towers, right, one hack wondered how the smallest hotel in Dublin can provide wi-fi and the multimillion-funded Dáil can’t.

SENATOR Ned O’Sullivan’s status as a one-man Skibbereen Eagle was burnished after he threw a wintry eye over Michael D Higgins’s recent interventions on Israel. Ned, the sworn enemy of Dublin’s seagulls, observed that the Government ‘can well do without hurlers on the ditch, especially people who are restricted by the Constitution in what they can and cannot say’. One source remarked: ‘Ned will have it easier with the seagulls than trying to stop Michael D talking.’

BUSINESS Post journalist Michael Brennan has leapt onto the sinking Government ship, albeit under the decorous sail of Norma Foley as her new adviser. Brennan’s finest media hour is believed to have been a gentle intervention when a minister declared that boycotting was not an Irish tradition. Out of kindness to the departed minister, we won’t reveal his name.