If you didn't know better, you'd think he was there as a party greeter, symbol of the well-scrubbed law and order outfit. Or maybe he saw this as a perfect recruiting plinth for the new garda reserve force.

Where better to press gang members for McDowell's fusiliers than from among the stolid, solid citizens who make up delegates to the Progressive Democrats annual conference.

The sun was declining over the Shannon when they came on Friday evening.

Nicely togged out, a smattering of pinstripes, a fair to middling complement of smart casual.

The only jarring note with the middleaged sartorial tone was the sight of Michael McDowell and Tim O'Malley donning Leinster and Munster jerseys for a cringing photocall.

For the first session of jaw jaw, they did the sardine trick. Everybody was packed into a room with a low ceiling and high temperature to hear Mary Harney's opening address. It was as if the idea was to simulate an A & E ward, to let the soldiers know this was the rock on which the party might perish.

Harney used the occasion to defend the privatisation of the health system, invoking Jonathan Swift as a PD before his time, having brought a private hospital to Dublin in 1795. The sweating attendance lapped it up. They could privatise all day and all night until the cows come home.

When she finished, there was a rush to exit for air. Only then did the motions get underway. This is often the most redundant phase of these conferences, the radical rhetoric having been dealt with. But hold on: what's that Motion Number 7?

?Conference recognises the great work that Fas community employment schemes have done throughout the country and demands that the capping of expenditure on schemes be removed".

The motion is carried by all, including a nodding Tanaiste. Now, who was it that put the cap on in the first place a few years ago in a move that was regarded as a reactionary and heartless gesture? Not that Harney woman, was it? Have the PDs, in Bertie's new caring era, lost their radical bent? If they're not radical, are theyfwell, go ask Michael McDowell.

Dinner was served at 9pm. The menu was littered with Limericks, because we were in Limerick and this is the PDs.

Here's one on Tom Parlon:

A farmer called Tom/ Went down a bomb/ In a remarkable feat/ He took a Dail seat/ Which he plans to hold with aplomb."

Despite such auspicious openings, the fare was bog standard; beef or salmon, or perhaps a bottle of Moet et Chandon at 90 a pop. Afterwards, the lights went down and Eddie Hobbs stepped up to the microphone.

This should have been Eddie's audience, big on fiscal rectitude and value for money. But as he weaved his way through macro economics, the silence grew more oppressive. Instead of the bon mot fare Eddie delivers on order, we had lines like:

?The Chinese are quickly moving up the value chain." Then there was the odd sideswipe at bedfellows Fianna Fail, which was greeted with cool indifference. This was not what they were here to hear.

Down in the stalls, eyelids drooped and the odd snore spluttered into life. I'm Eddie Hobbs and that was a bit of a disaster.

By 9.30am yesterday, they were up and at it, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, panning out across the cool spaces of the hotel's main conference hall. First on the agenda was a spot of hanging and flogging.

Naturally, the main attraction was the justice minister.

He wound his fans up with tales of drugs and guns and the cheapening of human life. Then he wound them back down with statistics that show that, per head of population, there has actually been a fall in headline crime over the years of his tenure. He hit out at a media report that he had recently had a cut at the judiciary over the bail laws. Then he had a cut at the judiciary over the bail laws. He spoke highly of mandatory jail sentences for gougers who endanger life with guns.

Yet the only motion he failed to address was one calling for a five-year ban for a first drunk driving offence, in which life is endangered by cars. (You'd never know what good burghers that suggestion might offend. ) It was brilliant stuff.

From there on, the passion began to wane. Transport, the environment, even the sight of Jack O'Connor wasn't enough to raise the cockles. On the sidelines, the talk was more about rugby than the quandary of being radical or redundant.

All that was left to perform was the tribal hail-to-the-chief with last night's party leader's speech. By that stage, all but the most committed must have lost the will to live. Despite strenuous efforts to accentuate their difference from all others, this crowd serve up standard fare.