The first day of the Masked Dáil created a room that looked like highwaymen against thieves. Blue, white and black face coverings were everywhere, while Seán Haughey stood out by wearing red and white polka dots in the Amber Heard style.
eann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, who mandated this particular parliamentary cover-up, opted for a welder’s shield …
The only one who didn’t have to cover his face was Micheál Martin, the powerful loan arranger, back from his nightly ride with the Brussels troupe. It’s a matter of money hello for the Shinners, for whom no amount of money is enough, not even 1.8 billion euros. But it was the taxpayers here who coughed (responsibly) to provide each TD with two masks in their lockers yesterday.
The only one who didn’t get the memo was TD for Laois-Offaly Brian Stanley, apparently still stuck in Bobby Storey’s funeral mode, when the party caught hell for daring to get naked.
A TD had previously hung his skimpy blanket in the canteen and said it reminded him of when former Dublin West TD Ruth Coppinger produced a thong in the bedroom (which also had an underlying fatal issue, whether “provocative” clothing could be pleaded in sexual assault cases).
The new rule provides opportunities for “Heckle and Hide” since no one can see your lips moving behind a mask, but no one has tried to take advantage of it for fear a muffled whisper will come out.
Richard Boyd Barrett seemed the most likely man, seeing as he wore a western spaghetti scarf, possibly as a tribute to the late Ennio Morricone. But he behaved well.
There is a long-standing rule prohibiting the wearing of emblems or symbols in the bedroom, but James Browne TD is wearing a Wexford GAA blanket around the campus, while a Liverpool FC mask has arrived in the press box. The start of a match was thwarted by a usher when Sinn Féin TD Mark Ward was barred from entering with a Dubs disguise.
The stereotypical TD is a male, stale and fond of beer, if not a bit of a whale. It is even the cohort most at risk of being shot down by the Covid-19. If the seriousness of the problem behind the edict was ever to be laid bare, it was done in a horrific manner by staff nurse Siobhán Murphy in evidence before the Oireachtas coronavirus committee.
After weeks of working in full PPE in a Covid ward, the 27-year-old contracted it on her own, becoming “paralyzed with fatigue, headaches and extreme shortness of breath”, until ” I think I am suffocating ”.
She lost her sense of taste and smell and fell prey to “vivid hallucinations” as her heart rate hit 170 beats per minute from the usual 60-80 bpm.
“I was completely weakened. I presented to the emergency room of my own hospital a week later, which was a huge shock to me,” she told the committee. Siobhán underwent a complete MRI and chest x-ray and was hooked up to a heart monitor throughout.
Twelve weeks later, she still suffers from periodic exhaustion, panic attacks and insomnia. So a mask seems like a small price to pay to reduce the chances that anyone will suffer in the same way.
