SMOKES & DAGGERS
A mischievous mix of political asides with CRAIG HUGHES, BRIAN MAHON AND AISLING MOLONEY
ASKED how she would represent de northside if she became an MEP, Dublin Rathdown’s esteemed TD Josepha Madigan is said to have told some Fine Gael members, ‘I have friends in the northside: in Sutton and in Howth’. When Smokes checked with the minister directly, she added her ex-husband was from Raheny and her sister lives in Castleknock. An MEP for greater Dublin!
INDEPENDENT TD Mattie ‘who are you loyal to’ McGrath was again causing confusion at the Oireachtas Media Committee. This time he was asking why RTÉ had kept auditors Deloitte, after they had previously given the troubled broadcaster a ‘clean bill of health’. He asked the RTÉ execs: ‘Is that an effort to keep the chickens in the house, if the guests can pardon the pun, and to keep the rooster away from them? We badly need a rooster to get into RTÉ because there are so many hundreds of good people in there.’ Is Mattie the rooster?
AT THE end of the grilling in front of the Media Committee, Senator Malcolm Byrne suggested that RTÉ make the rights to Toy Show The Musical available to amateur societies around the country. ‘I think you might find that they might make more money from it,’ the senator quipped. Kevin Bakhurst, after four hours in the hot seat, quipped back, ‘I don’t think we’ll be using them’.
INDEPENDENT Senator Victor Boyhan, the son of a cattle dealer, told Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys that she came into his mind ‘the other day’ when he was in Leinster marts… ‘They’re looking for an auctioneer and I thought you’d fit the bill quite well!’ Not sure if that was a backhanded compliment or a fronthanded jibe.