Sinn Féin, which had faltered in late November and December on policing issues and immigration, returned to familiar ground as its leader Mary Lou McDonald lambasted the Government on the issue of investment funds buying large swathes of housing developments.

While the subject may have different specifics, it was a debate which has happened many times before in this Dáil — Sinn Féin accuses the Government of being out of touch on the issue of housing, the Government defends its record.

Taking Leaders’ Questions in the absence of the Taoiseach who was meeting the Chinese premier, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys argued back that institutional funds buy around 1% of homes and said the Government is “making it possible for young people to buy homes”.

That prompting the Cork North-Central TD Thomas Gould to retort with “In Australia?”.

Ms Humphreys for her part asked Ms McDonald if she could rebuild her home for €300,000, a nod and a wink to former minister Shane Ross’s book on the Sinn Féin leader.

Sinn Féin and Fine Gael skirmishing on housing? 

Happy New Year, baby, it’s just like last year.

While Sinn Féin and then Labour avoided talking about immigration, People Before Profit’s Bríd Smith didn’t so much tackle the subject as she did go all in two-footed, slamming the Rural Independents group as leaving “echoes of Nazi supporters’ lies in this Chamber” and accusing the Government of leading to the scapegoating of refugees.

“Those echoes, which come from Rural Independents and others across this house, which blame refugees for the problems that we have, actually make a difference to how people think,” she said, earning a rebuke from the Ceann Comhairle for “diminishing the appalling nature of what Nazism is”.

“I am actually standing here to say the far right are liars and Nazi sympathisers,” Ms Smith replied.

Had she been at the front gate of Leinster House an hour earlier, she could have met with the 70 or so protesters at the gate who were protesting against immigration, the World Economic Forum, and various other things.

At the building’s back gate, around 100 people gathered to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and it was that issue which tipped the first-day-back narkiness into a full-on row.

TDs called for the Government to join the South African case at the International Court of Justice, and others demanded time to debate the issue in the Dáil.

The Ceann Comhairle made an intervention to urge People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett to resume his seat and to “stop making a charade of the place”. After back and forth with Mr Boyd Barrett and his colleagues Paul Murphy and Mick Barry, the Dáil was suspended for five minutes, just an hour into the new term.

New year, new attitude? Not really.