LEINSTER House has been the scene of some extraordinary events over the decades: TDs carrying guns, collapsed governments, newly-appointed ministers being forced out of office, politicians being assaulted, addresses by the likes of John F Kennedy.

Whether the story of last Tuesday's events will come to be classed in that category must be doubtful. But given that the unseating of the Ceann Comhairle was an unprecedented event, there's no denying that what happened was exceptional.

And the fall-out will linger for time to come. The Oireachtas is the most exclusive club in the country and, while there will always be political differences and rows, it should never be forgotten that TDs and senators have more in common with each other than the rest of the general population.

Only they understand the sheer grind involved in being a politician, the uncertainty of having to re-apply for your job every few years before an often fickle public, the constant public scrutiny, the family sacrifices. They mightn't all like each other, but there is almost always respect borne out of a common experience.

For that reason the type of bloodletting that takes place from time to time goes a lot deeper than many people would imagine. And there's no question there was a lot of soreness and tension around the corridors of Leinster House last week.

The shock of a week earlier when Eamon Gilmore delivered his fatal blow to John O'Donoghue was gone, replaced by anger. John O'Donoghue was angry with Eamon Gilmore but also, it seemed, with the world in general. His speech was wonderfully crafted but, as Fianna Fáil figures privately conceded, it totally misjudged the public mood.

The outgoing Ceann Comhairle did not refer to Gilmore by name. But nobody was in doubt as to whom he was referring when he said: "I would have hoped that this house could have allowed me a few days to put my side of these events on the record. But patience in aid of fairness gave way, alas, to impatience to surf the political wave of competitive outrage." The follow-up line was even more cutting: "Lest it be said that the failure to give me a chance to defend myself has somehow embittered me, I want to acknowledge that the failure to afford me a right to be fairly heard arises from weakness rather than malice." Me-ow!

Fianna Fáil TDs were also angry with Gilmore but perhaps not as angry as was suggested during the week. That's not to say that they wouldn't avail of the opportunity to – as one government source put it – "have Gilmore" if it ever arises. There was a fair few snorts of derision from the Fianna Fáil benches when Gilmore said that he regretted having to do what he did. But their gripe is the way in which O'Donoghue was forced out. Few of them believe there was any alternative but for him to go. They just felt he should have been allowed make his presentation to the Oireachtas Commission before that happened.

That makes it different from, for example, the public skewering of Jim McDaid back in 1991 when within hours of his appointment as Minister for Defence, the Donegal TD was the subject of an all-out assault from Fine Gael and the Workers Party because of his (entirely legitimate and correct) involvement in an extradition case involving a leading IRA man. Although McDaid had done nothing wrong, the frenzied atmosphere spooked Fianna Fáil's coalition partners, the PDs, and in order to head off a confrontation between the two government parties, McDaid honourably withdrew his name. The hostility of Fianna Fáil TDs both towards the opposition and the PDs took a long time to pass.

Anger levels

Despite everything the anger levels were nowhere near that level last week. Whatever the media or Labour had done, the over-riding feeling was that O'Donoghue's expenses were so unjustifiable that his position was untenable.

"I was a bit pissed off with Labour," one Fianna Fáil TD told the Sunday Tribune. "And it was quite unsettling for a couple of days watching a public execution. It's not nice on a personal level."

However, his comment that he couldn't "defend the indefensible" confirms the view that, while they might like O'Donoghue personally, Fianna Fáil TDs would not have relished the opportunity to troop through the lobbies on his behalf if it had come to a vote.

And politics ultimately being a selfish profession, the Fianna Fáil deputies were immensely cheered by the agreement of a new programme for government between the coalition partners. The deal has fuelled a new confidence that, notwithstanding the inevitability of a ferocious budget, the government will not only survive until Christmas but could run its full term.

"There is a better atmosphere within Fianna Fáil. It's weird in that sense. There isn't an air of depression [that you might expect after O'Donoghue]," one TD said.

That warming feeling in Fianna Fáil has been helped by the very obvious tension that exists between Eamon Gilmore and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and between their respective parties. Fine Gael and Labour fought the last general election as partners and there was a very real bond between Kenny and Pat Rabbitte.

However, people on the Labour benches certainly felt Kenny was having a dig at Gilmore in the Dáil on Tuesday when he said, "politics is always about people and in a profession which is devoid of sentiment and sympathy I have always held the belief that it should not be devoid of humanity or a sense of decency. That is why I made no apology for setting out a process which would have allowed the previous Ceann Comhairle to state his position at the forum of the Dáil established for that purpose."

There is anger within Fine Gael at the manner in which Gilmore won the public's plaudits for calling time on O'Donoghue. Some of the anger is directed at Gilmore but a fair amount of it is towards Kenny for allowing it to happen.

Nobody questions Kenny's decision to allow O'Donoghue to address the issues through the Oireachtas Commission. But there is a view that when he spoke in the Dáil immediately before Gilmore dropped his bombshell last Tuesday week, he should have effectively put the Ceann Comhairle on notice that while he was affording him the opportunity to explain himself, unless that explanation addressed all the concerns raised that his position would be untenable. That would have headed off Gilmore. "What made Gilmore's intervention inevitable was that Kenny wasn't hard enough," said one source close to Fine Gael.

'No stomach for pulling the trigger'

Others, however, are more sympathetic to Kenny. One deputy said that the Fine Gael leader would "rather go through Dante's inferno than go through the past couple of weeks again". While Kenny has shown the requisite toughness to survive and prosper, without challenge, as Fine Gael leader for seven years, he had "no stomach for pulling the trigger" on O'Donoghue.

The chasm between Fine Gael and Labour even saw the two parties voting in different ways in the Dáil last week. While Eamon Gilmore very pointedly told the Dáil that Labour would not be opposing "in a partisan way" the nomination of Seamus Kirk to replace O'Donoghue, Enda Kenny proposed Dinny McGinley. The resulting vote on Kirk's nomination saw Labour abstain and the 51 Fine Gael deputies in splendid isolation as every other deputy present in the house voted for the Louth TD.

Fine Gael's young brand Leo Varadkar responded to Gilmore's announcement accepting Kirk's nomination by shouting across the floor "The Labour Party is unbelievable."

Varadkar then went on Tonight With Vincent Browne on TV3 that night and made direct criticisms of Gilmore and Labour. "One thing that really annoys me about this whole episode – and I will probably get into trouble for saying this but I think it needs to be said – is that Eamon Gilmore is probably going to emerge from this week as appearing as someone with leadership qualities. But if he had leadership qualities what he would have done that morning when he was at the Siptu conference instead of reversing his position in favour of a new benchmarking process, he would have said to them for example that in order to save jobs and protect public services some people might have to take a pay cut. He didn't do that. He reversed his position on benchmarking and then what he did in the Dáil was largely opportunistic and in my view designed to get political credit for him," Varadkar said.

The outburst did not go unnoticed in the Labour Party. "We were struck by the very acerbic comments," one senior figure said. A few weeks back Lucinda Creighton told Today FM's Sunday Supplement that Labour TDs were "saying one thing in private and another in public" on public sector pay. The comments reflect a fairly widespread frustration within Fine Gael that Labour is getting plaudits, both from the media and the general public, for taking what they believe is a blatantly populist line.

There is also irritation at Gilmore's ongoing insistence, however improbable it might be, that he is aiming for a Labour-led government.

None of this, it should be said, will stop the two parties getting it together if, as is very likely, the numbers dictate that after the next general election. But it does leave the potential for Fianna Fáil to try and expose "glaring differences" – as government TD Timmy Dooley described them last week – between the two parties.

But if there was one issue last week on which deputies across all parties were agreed it was the need to show that they were responding to public anger about TDs' and senators' expenses. While it's the government that's feeling the heat on this issue right now, everyone is shocked at the level of public hostility and there is a view that it is being fuelled by the media. "The body politic has a common enemy and that's the media," one long-serving TD said privately last week.

It's comforting to know that despite all the turmoil of the past few weeks, some things never change.