SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of political asides with

TWO of the Dublin Bay South front runners, Ivana Bacik and Lynn Boylan, are blessed with pugnacious pugs, which is, of course, a useful political asset. Bacik’s is named Ginny – after Ginny Beasley in Harry Potter, apparently – while Boylan’s pooch is a three-toothed rescue Bichon called Cooper. Inquiries made by Smokes have yet to establish if James Geoghegan has a dog. One FG source assured us, however, that if he did, ‘it’s a pedigree’.

FIANNA Fáil’s decision to hand out ‘Vote Deirdre’ cards with no further information has not gone down well among those in the party not convinced of the capabilities of the candidate, Deirdre Conroy, or indeed her electoral Svengali, Jim O’Callaghan. One source whispered: ‘Several voters said who is Deirdre? The only Deirdre I know is from Coronation Street (above).’ That’s really setting the Barlow, Smokes said to himself.

STILL on Dublin Bay South, we listened with interest to the advice of one Labour grandee that one should not ignore the Trinity factor. A new game show, we asked? Apparently not.

Research shows that over 5,000 Trinity graduates reside in the poshest constituency and ‘they are all boxed in for Ivana’, or so we were told.

TáNAISTE Leo Varadkar’s curious new embrace of optimism continued apace when Independent TD Michael McNamara asked about the Government’s plans for winter outdoor dining. Responding to the query on whether Leo (above) had ‘ever been in Miltown

Malbay or Tulla when the rain is coming in sideways’, a sunny Varadkar replied: ‘On the two occasions on which I was in Miltown Malbay, the sun was splitting the stones.’ We might have been reading too much Douglas Adams recently, but could the Tánaiste be a sun god? We could send him west and maybe solve the problem once and for all.