LABOUR Party leader Eamon Gilmore got to his feet in the Dáil chamber at 4.29pm on Tuesday afternoon and dropped a bombshell. His lone voice in the deathly silence uttered the following words:

"A Cheann Comhairle, I regret to say this but I consider that your position is no longer tenable. I think you will either have to resign or be removed from office."

The sequence of events that followed last week were – to borrow a phrase associated with another era in Leinster House folklore – unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented. Some Fianna Fáilers would even call them grotesque. But how did the party leaders come out of the O'Donoghue debacle?

Eamon Gilmore (Labour)

Rising to his feet, Gilmore opened with the words: "I felt that the pattern of extravagance was unacceptable… to the vast majority of taxpayers".

By throwing parliamentary convention to the wind, Gilmore played a blinder and triumphed in the public mind. While his comments may have riled Fianna Fáil and may be viewed as populist, Gilmore has to get full marks for judging the public mood.

In the public eye, and the court of opinion that is the 'Liveline generation', Gilmore has now sent out a message that Leinster House is also going through remarkable political times, when norms in the boys' club can be challenged.

His move was somewhat tainted in the 48 hours after he dropped the bombshell as it was reported that O'Donoghue had no inkling that Gilmore was going to call for his resignation until the Labour leader got to his feet. While there was contact between the pair earlier on Tuesday, it has been claimed that O'Donoghue was genuinely shocked.

Gilmore may appear as the only political leader to grasp the nettle, but he has left a bitter taste in Fianna Fáil mouths. One government source told the Sunday Tribune that "if we ever get the chance in the future, we'll have Gilmore".

Enda Kenny (Fine Gael)

History repeats itself. Eamon Gilmore did to Enda Kenny in 2009 what Dick Spring did to Alan Dukes in 1989. While Gilmore triumphed in the public mind, Enda Kenny was 'gazumped' by the Labour leader.

On Thursday 29 June 1989, Fianna Fáil leader Charlie Haughey lost a vote to become taoiseach by 86 votes to 78. Instead of conceding that he had lost the support of the Dáil and announcing that he was going to go to the president to resign from office after losing the vote, Haughey proposed that the Dáil be adjourned until the following Monday.

After Spring raised concerns, the Dáil was adjourned for two hours before Haughey was forced to resign. Dukes had been gazumped by the leader of the junior partner in opposition.

Last Sunday, Kenny agreed to let O'Donoghue explain himself to the Houses of the Oireachtas committee meeting on Wednesday. He was clearly wrong-footed by Gilmore's bombshell on Tuesday. Shortly before 6pm a text message from Fine Gael was circulated to reporters stating, "In the interests of the independence of the office of Ceann Comhairle, John O'Donoghue should resign forthwith".

Fine Gael's U-turn was understandable after Gilmore's bombshell, but the later calls for O'Donoghue's immediate resignation made it look like a party merely playing catch-up.

In hindsight, Kenny should have stuck to the same line from Sunday on. Gilmore had already won the race to capture the public mood and the U-turn looked ill-conceived.

Brian Cowen (Fianna Fáil)

After a chaotic 16 months in power, Taoiseach Brian Cowen should have been enjoying one of his first major victories with last weekend's Lisbon vote. Instead of boasting to European luminaries such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel about how he swung the vote, Cowen found himself fighting yet another political fire.

Cowen was clearly furious at the manner of Gilmore's call for O'Donoghue's head in the Dáil chamber. It is obvious that Cowen, like everyone in his party, does not approve of such a public humiliation.

It was a tricky situation for Cowen for obvious reasons, but voters, who are not concerned about Dáil protocol, will wonder if he should have moved against the Ceann Comhairle himself as the litany of lavish expenses emerged.

John Gormley (Greens)

For John Gormley and his party, the past few days have all been about striking a deal with Fianna Fáil and selling it to party members in the RDS.

The O'Donoghue affair will not have done Gormley any harm in the eyes of the membership, as it emerged that he spoke to Cowen three times on Tuesday night about O'Donoghue.

Cowen told Gormley that O'Donoghue wanted to know if there were any circumstances in which the Greens could support him in a contested vote in the house. In a move that would have pleased the party grassroots, Gormley told Cowen three times that his party would not support such a vote.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Sinn Féin)

Throughout the summer when the Sunday Tribune ran stories about O'Donoghue's extravagant expenses during his time as Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, one of the few TDs to question him openly was Sinn Féin's justice spokesman, Aengus Ó Snodaigh.

Sinn Féin also set the agenda on Tuesday morning when Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin called for O'Donoghue to resign and said Sinn Féin wanted to table a motion of no confidence in the Ceann Comhairle. As the party has only four TDs – three shy of the seven names needed to table such a motion – they were not able to act alone.

The question can be asked: Did Sinn Féin force Gilmore's hand later in the day and put him in a position where he had to go for the jugular?

Following O'Donoghue's announcement that he would resign next week, Ó Caoláin called for his immediate resignation on Wednesday. This call, along with a similar call from Fine Gael which quickly fizzled out, riled Fianna Fáil TDs and provoked Cowen to accuse the parties of "dancing on the grave" of O'Donoghue.

Despite this accusation, Sinn Féin came out of the O'Donoghue affair quite well because of its willingness to question the extravagance from August on.