SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

FIANNA Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien was comprehensively gazumped by Senator Lorraine Clifford at the FF thinkin. Lorraine, who ‘shares’ the constituency with him, greeted all FF delegates with a delightful gift of crisps and chocolate. Darragh, by contrast, arrived bearing a handshake and a how are you. One TD said: ‘He’ll have to be buying a fair few pints tonight to catch up with that.’

IN HIS weekly video message, Leo Varadkar was speaking from Stepaside Educate Together National

school on the topic of capital investment in schools nationwide. He lauded a €12m investment over the next 10 years. The only problem is, it’s €12bn. The mistake was even captioned, making you wonder who checked the video before release.

THE Taoiseach was also in a Gaelscoil in Balbriggan earlier in the day. He

was brought into a woodwork class for about 10 minutes. As he was leaving, having failed to talk directly to any of the eager pupils – and also refusing to pose with any woodwork tools – it was suggested to him that he might want to, you

know, speak to the kids. He then delivered an off-the-cuff 30-second speech in Irish, to nobody in particular, before walking out. One of the teens turned to Smokes and asked: ‘Sin é?’

FORMER minister Lucinda Creighton, pictured, was appointed to the board of Horse Racing Ireland this week. But regular readers will know all about this, as we told you it was going to happen in this space, in August. So what next? A tilt at Europe? Don’t say we didn’t warn you.