Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

There is more to being in Government than smiling for photo opportunities. A classic photograph in today's newspaper showed the Taoiseach with a kitten on his shoulder. All the cute kittens in the world will not make this Government look caring.

Despite divisions within Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, they are clinging together because there is no longer a difference between the two. They have effectively become one. In school, teachers used to struggle to find a modern example of how the Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves. They can now look at the Progressive Democrats and say that it has become more Fianna Fáil than Fianna Fáil.

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