SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of political asides and (mostly) news

GOOD to see Shane Ross’s time in Cabinet hasn’t left him without a sense of humour. Comic Chris O’Dowd commented on a picture of Dubs captain Stephen Cluxton lifting the Sam Maguire yesterday: ‘Some team they’ve built there. And extra congrats to Stephen Cluxton for finishing his speech before Shane Ross could reach the podium.’ Ross responded: ‘Are the celebrations over, Chris? I’m on the way! Can I bring Katie?’ Who knows, maybe he was serious...

LOOKS like the Taoiseach’s Trump-like rewriting of history by declaring ‘We didn’t bail out the banks’ emboldened all sorts of fanciful talk among our elected reps. ‘I’ve never used cannabis,’ responded teetotaller Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan.

FIANNA Fáil has followed the lead of its coalition partners and appointed spokespeople to shadow government ministers, as if the Republican Party wasn’t part of the administration. Dara Calleary is the new spokesman on social protection. We’re sure the short-lived agriculture minister would have preferred to shadow his successor Charlie McConalogue, or even Sports Minister Catherine Martin, but perhaps that would have dragged up too many painful golfrelated memories.

IT WAS a difficult week for Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley who had to say sorry in the Dáil for something he felt he shouldn’t have to apologise for. Just two hours later he fell foul of Leinster House Covid-19 guidelines when hugging party colleague Mairéad Farrell. A Sinn Féin source said: ‘This obviously shouldn’t have happened, but we are all human at the end of the day and hugging an upset colleague for a moment was a brief lapse of judgment, not a hanging offence.’