PHILIP NOLAN
A pale imitation of the glory days, this year we got an X Factor budget
PEARSE Doherty was incandescent. ‘The Irish electorate will not be bought,’ he thundered, displaying a faintly endearing naivety. He did actually notice how Fianna Fáil won three terms in office back to back, yeah?
His response to the Budget at least was interesting. But when the camera turned to Fianna Fáil’s Seán Fleming, he started outlining his rebuttal. In chapters. As he went on, it occurred to me that the Bible had fewer chapters and, let’s be honest, more levity too.
Mr Fleming has the television presence of a deluded contestant on X Factor, though he is considerably less entertaining, so it was perhaps fortunate that his colleague Michael McGrath was on hand to deliver a few direct hits on the Government in relation to its treatment of pensioners. As he chastised Fine Gael, Minister Brendan Howlin looked like a kid denying he was in the orchard while apples spilled out of his pockets.
Of course, we almost didn’t hear the first half of the Budget at all. Instead of a lapel microphone, Finance Minister Michael Noonan was using a microphone mounted on the ledge beneath him. Unfortunately, the printout of his speech was right in front of it, and when he wasn’t actually hitting it with his papers, it rendered much of what he said muffled.
IT hardly mattered, because there have been so many leaks of what was coming, they almost had to call in Irish Water to sort it out. There were other distractions. Micheál Martin was ill advised in the tie department and it kept strobing on camera, making him l ook l i ke an LED billboard in Piccadilly Circus. Seán Fleming, meanwhile, appeared to be trying to exploit the goodwill of the marriage equality referendum by wearing a rainbow tie that also played havoc with the colour and contrast on my television. Sometimes, high definition isn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Over in the tieless section of the Dáil chamber, it was left to Paul Murphy to try to repair his wounded pride after Mr Howlin jibed, in relation to his support for Greece’s new government which backed down on its resistance to austerity: ‘Who speaks of Syriza now?’
As Murphy attempted to ask, ‘who speaks of Pasok now?’ referring to that country’s conservative former ruling party, though, his time ran out and his microphone was switched off. Mind you, he was still more audible than Noonan.
On RTÉ, Keelin Shanley told us that reaction to the Budget was coming from Ciarán Mullooly in RTÉ’s Tullamore studio, which turned out to be a shopping centre. People there seemed broadly happy with the Budget, especially the owner of a small business who will get an extra €550 tax credit next year.
Also celebrating will be fathers, who will be entitled to a fortnight of paid paternity leave from next September.
I think we already know how a lot of couples will bring in the New Year. On RTÉ’s Six-One News, Sharon Ní Bheoláin ditched her trademark all black and wore a bright floralprint top, which no doubt Montrose’s many detractors will see as some sort of subliminal attempt to convince us all that everything is coming up roses.
The main problem for TV watchers, though, was that there really was very little conflict this year. Pre-election Budgets are like that, and when governments actually do much of what they have been called upon to do, the Opposition has to identify even more niche detail to have a go at, but never with much in the way of conviction. And so this TV Budget, just like the aforementioned X Factor, just felt like a pale imitation of its former self, a jaded, tired, clichéd, half-hearted stab at its own glory days.
And so it was left to other media to cause bigger ripples. On Twitter, the Department of Finance released an infographic showing how the Budget would impact on a married couple earning €70,000 a year. The couple were called Claire and Michelle. On a day when it seemed like business as usual, there was at least one reminder that we really do live in a new Ireland after all.