IT’S THE POLITICAL silly season which means our elected representatives are either off on holiday, tending to their constituency work or getting up to mischief.
The veteran Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea has clearly chosen the latter as he made an appearance on TV3′s The Seven O’Clock Show last night.
We knew this would be good when the show opened with presenter Lucy Kennedy describing O’Dea as “a Limerick man whose moustache would make even Tom Selleck jealous”.
Sure enough this wasn’t a Morning Ireland-style interview.
Kennedy’s co-presenter, the little-known George Hook, asked O’Dea:
“How many babies a week do you kiss to become a prolific vote getter and how many funerals do you attend?”
“Well,” said Willie. “I don’t kiss babies.”
That settles that then.
They eventually moved onto politics and all this recent talk of coalitions. Never one to miss out on having a dig at the opposition, O’Dea said that a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would only allow the other parties to grow.
This would mean the possibility “of a government led by Sinn Féin and the loony left and the left overs”. Ouch.
O’Dea was joined on the couch by the US-based entertainment reporter Ruth O’Neill who has left LA to find love back in Dublin.
O’Neill’s reasons for coming home left Hook bemused and prompted him to ask O’Dea:
Kiss babies in Limerick or kiss blondes with short skirts and high heels in Los Angeles. Which do you want?
There was lots of nervous laughter before the Limerick man came clean:
It’s… it’s… it’s a no brainer.
Later O’Dea stunningly revealed that he didn’t like pizza. Despite this they still let him do the cooking slot.
“Are you any good in the kitchen, Willie?” asked Hook.
“No,” was O’Dea’s pointed response.
This made the construction of farfalle or bow-tie pasta all the more interesting.
O’Dea had a go but admitted: “I’m not into bow-ties, George. That’s a Fine Gael thing.”
Later, O’Dea returned to the couch where there was loads more banter with Hookie, prompting the rugby man to suggest he was securing half a quota for the Limerick deputy.
Before the show closed O’Dea talked about “recasting” the social protection system and changing it without spending more money.
Then, just to make it extra weird, he was presented with a knitted version of himself.
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a cult… I am stopped quite a lot,” O’Dea admitted.
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