Name-calling and mentioning taboo names is the name of the game

DÁIL SKETCH:Fine Gael was reminded that George Lee 'hasn't gone away, you know'

SHANE ROSS appeared hesitant to mention a taboo name. “I hate to raise the name of George Lee in this House,” he said.

Then a great grin lit up his face as he referred to his celebrity predecessor in Dublin South, now returned to the arms of RTÉ.

There was an immediate response from the Fine Gael benches about their former deputy, who lasted just eight months before resigning from the Dáil.

“You wouldn’t be here without him,” quipped Jerry Buttimer to the new TD for the constituency. Everyone laughed.

Ross was quick with a response: “He is remembered by me with great affection . . . ”

“He was very impressed with the boss,” said Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, engaging in a bit of Schadenfreude.

Ross went on to lightly taunt the larger Government party that the Taoiseach, who scored a major coup at the time with the recruitment of the broadcaster to the party, was being reminded that “he hasn’t gone away, you know”.

The reminder was the broadcaster’s Pension Shock programme on the state of the pension industry and the huge administration fees charged to pension contributors.

A few people were “pillaging” the funds and the Government had joined in that plunder with its 0.6 per cent pension levy, worth €1.8 billion over four years.

He went on to highlight the Taoiseach’s comments that the administration charges imposed by pension funds could cover most of that pension penalty.

The former senator urged Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore to “fulfil the Taoiseach’s wish” and take the money from the industry, not the people paying into the fund.

Gilmore, repeating virtually word for word the statement in the briefing document read earlier in the week in the Dáil by the Taoiseach, also said they would ensure a pension regime that “does not make managers rich and pensioners poor”.

He went on to fire a shot across the bow of the industry that they could not tolerate it taking too much out of the pot, “especially when the State is providing tax breaks to support pension provision”. How effective that pot shot will be remains to be seen.

Earlier there were other pot shots and other names mentioned when Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald accused the Government of failing to move to secure the almost 1,000 proposed redundancies at insurance giant Aviva, doing little about jobs in general and giving just “tea and sympathy”.

Buttimer was back on heckling duty. “Why isn’t Sinn Féin raising the problems at Priory Hall?” he said.

“You’re a gurrier. That’s disgraceful,” said Mac Lochlainn.

“Aithníonn ciaróg, ciaróg eile [it takes one to know one],” was the retort.

But back to the Tánaiste.

He was hurt. “There is nothing the Government is doing more about than jobs,” he insisted, and mentioned his trade mission last week to Japan and Korea.

They were meeting officials from India this week. And of course there was the great success of the Global Irish Economic Forum and they were very appreciative that former US president Bill Clinton, who attended, was willing to set up a meeting of leaders in the US.

“He was brought here by your friend Denis O’Brien,” quipped Independent TD Finian McGrath.

The Opposition thought it was hilarious.

The Government front bench didn’t see the joke.