This week's full meeting of Belfast City Council was far from a barrel of laughs. In retrospect maybe the laughs were missing because DUP veteran Sammy Wilson was absent – he's so fantastically and angrily eloquent when he's outraged.
I did get a giggle, though, when UUP councillor Jim Rodgers objected to a Council delegation going to Denver, Colorado and SDLP councillor Tim Attwood piped up – "Aren't you proposing that the Council goes to Brazil, Jim?"
Which is true. Jim Rodgers has supported the Council's proposal to make a bid in Brazil to bring the Women's World Open Squash Championships to Belfast.
This quip caused hoots and roars from the benches but although the red-faced councillor backed down in his objection to the Denver trip, he valiantly fought his corner insisting business leaders were becoming increasing concerned by the number of junkets the Council and its officers were making.
Which again is true. Trips to every corner of the globe have been organised in recent months, all in the name of acquiring fresh business – Nashville, Cyprus and the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia to name a few.
A more sobering matter was debated at the end of the Council meeting with the DUP calling on the Council to distance itself from Fr Alec Reid's comments, which compared the unionist community to Nazis. This was passed by 20 votes from Unionist and Alliance councillors, while the SDLP and Sinn Féin benches abstained.
Councillor Nelson McCausland explained his reasons for such a critical motion of Fr Reid at great length, not least touching on the hurt to the Jewish community that was caused.
It was clear that in the aftermath of Fr Reid's remarks the DUP former chairman of the Ulster Scots Agency might well have trawled through every newspaper published in Ireland and further afield for he quoted and made reference to many publications including Danny Morrison's column in Andersonstown News' sister paper Daily Ireland, the letters pages of the Irish News and Daily Ireland, Kevin Myers of the Irish Times, the United Ireland newspaper under the editorship of Arthur Griffith and, lastly, an article published in an American newspaper, which used remarks from a Catholic priest.
"It's being seen as acceptable to compare the Nazis to the unionist community," Nelson McCausland said.
"A president has said it, a priest has said it – it must be true."
Councillor McCausland in his speech also included some details about a pogrom against the Jewish community in Limerick in 1904 which was led, he said, by a Redemptorist priest and approved of in the pages of the United Irishman.
Using this historical reference, Councillor McCausland implied that the Redemptorist clergy's relationship with the Jewish community has been strained by events.
Which Sinn Féin and the SDLP promptly dismissed as pure claptrap. "You're flogging a dead horse," Sinn Féin councillor Alex Maskey insisted.
"Fr Reid has apologised very publicly about this, and I understand people were feeling collectively demonised.
"But the sad point is that unionist representatives know full well the tremendous work Fr Reid and others at Clonard and also Protestant clergy have done for the peace process."
SDLP councillor Tim Attwood said he believed the great work carried out by priests such as Fr Reid and Fr Gerry Reynolds should not be overlooked.
"These men have convinced the men of violence there was a better way forward. They wanted to pursue an end to conflict through peaceful means. I know it's been a comment made in error but we have to move on."
DUP councillor Jim Kirkpatrick said he truly believed that Fr Reid was "speaking from the heart" while Jim Rodgers accepted the priest's apology and said everyone was capable of saying "the wrong thing at the wrong time".
The last debate of the evening related to East Belfast.
The Council has to spend £300,000 by Christmas and the panic is on. West, North and South Belfast spent their share of a European Union windfall via the Gateway Project but East Belfast, according to Councillor Reg Empey, was hampered by the government and, specifically, the Department of Social Development.
As a result Reg proposed £100,000 go to the Thompson Dry Dock, so that some of the benefits might filter back to his constituency and the rest of the money, £200,000, be deferred pending a report by the Council's Director of Development, Marie Therese McGivern.
This amendment, seconded by PUP leader David Ervine, was given cross-party support with lots of comments relating to the future of the Titanic Quarter site, the Signature Project and the Council's say in its development.
Far from muddying the waters, the Council was collective in its support to help East Belfast and its people.
As Paul Maskey explained: "This flies in the face of the argument that loyalists have no access to infrastructures. The money was there, it just proves weak political leadership in East Belfast."
