“It’s that Pat Muldoon, your daughter’s fella, if you ask me.” Kilmartin’s tone took on an ominous, schoolmasterish tone. “As for the busmen, I say we let the Army come in and either drive the bloody buses or use Army lorries. Remember when they used to do that?” asked the philosopher-king.

“I do. Don’t you think that seeing Army lorries and uniforms on the streets here would make us look like the banana republic we are rapidly becoming?” an indelicate Minogue advanced.

Kilmartin laughed without sparing a smile. “Jokes aside, there are plenty of people in the country who wouldn’t mind seeing the unions get a rap on the knuckles. Maybe having Army lads on the streets would improve general morale.”

“Getting the trains to run on time, is it? Then maybe we should take over the Isle of Man and call them the Malvinas.”

“Fine and well for you to be laughing about it, Matt. I’ll tell you this and I’ll tell you no more.” Kilmartin leaned closer to Minogue to shield his wisdom from the returning waiter. “There’s men well up the ladder, well above us little pissers,” he whispered, “men who’d like to put the unions and their Leftie hangabouts to work and get the country back into the civilized world. Leadership is what we need, let me tell you. All you have is ad-hoc-itis, floating fluff until election time.”

Minogue did not care to listen to the remarks of high-ranking policemen which Kilmartin might have overheard at the boozy conferences he liked to attend. He believed their political vagaries to be less antic than threatening. “I tend more toward the hang-about position rather than the alternative,” he murmured.

Kilmartin grunted. “Tell you what. If there was a new party introduced tomorrow morning and it wasn’t full of lunatics, there’d be plenty of people’d come out of the woods and support it. Every dog and divil is ready for a change. What do you think?”