Simon Harris has left the stage. He has gone home to Greystones to spend time with his new baby daughter, born this day last week. The lights have not guttered and died in the Department of Finance, nor have the screaming and shrieking abated in Leinster House. It’s business as usual in Merrion Street. The world has not – so far – slammed to a standstill without the three-hatted Tánaiste, Minister and Fine Gael leader.

Never has so senior a Government member upped and left the ship of state to go on paternity leave. Harris delivered his budget speech on Tuesday and did his morning-after media appearance on Wednesday. Then he went home to help mind the children. More power to his ambitious elbow.

This is his third fatherhood break. The first two times, he was lower down the Cabinet pecking order, holding briefs in health and higher education respectively. This time, he has gone awl (absent with leave) smack in the middle of Ireland’s EU presidency and just as he is poised to take over from Micheál Martin as taoiseach next year.

Everyone is dispensable. The world is beset with wars, plagues, floods, droughts and a litre of diesel costing more than €2, but Harris’s furlough has been reported in the media as meriting little more than an aside. As incidental as Michael Healy-Rae’s cap or Mary Lou McDonald’s new fringe. What a contrast with the extensive coverage not so long ago, when Helen McEntee, then the minister for justice, and Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns first took maternity leave. As Fine Gael’s deputy leader, McEntee becomes her party’s de facto leader now, a move which, like Cairns’ current........

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