Whatever you do, Brian, don't mention the deficit
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FadÓ, fadó in ancient Greece, wise men came from all over to listen to the sage pronouncements and prophecies of the Oracle at Delphi -- but alas, the oracle's utterances always ranged from enigmatic to gibberish and needed painstaking translation.
And it has come to pass that over two and a half millennia later, Ireland has been blessed with its own visionary, the Offaly Oracle who has brought verbal hocus-pocus to new heights altogether.
What could our Taoiseach have been talking about, when he said the following in Leader's Questions yesterday afternoon?
"That deterioration if you like has to be addressed in the context of the Government being prepared to look at further programmes to see what way we can ensure that going into next year, as challenging as it may be, to see in what way we can seek to help stabilise the finances further."
After much consultation amongst the translators of political patois, it has been concluded (tentatively) that Brian Cowen was saying that more cutbacks are in the post.
The Taoiseach was a man on a mission when he entered the Dail chamber yesterday. He was determined Not To Mention The War, aka the latest Exchequer returns. Even if Enda and Eamon wheeled a rack into the middle of the floor, strapped him to it and turned the wheel, would he allow the fearful figures to escape his lips.
He wasn't going to be the Bad News Bear yesterday. That was for the Other Brian, over in the Finance Department.
And so the Big Game hunt began, with Enda and Eamon stalking Brian through the impenetrable wilderness of Jargonland, as their prey steadfastly spoke in tongues. Enda wanted to know what the Taoiseach intended to do to help "inject confidence" into the Irish economy.
"What is the Government's plan now in view of the serious reports that the Exchequer returns for November are seriously off line with the forecasts in the Budget?" he asked.
Brian instantly embarked on a bewildering series of evasive manoeuvres, beginning with one of his favourite opening swerves -- that is, blame the whole financial farrago on those blasted profligate foreigners.
"We are experiencing a sharp deterioration in the economic situation internationally, and that obviously affects an open economy like Ireland as any other," he said, before tossing about a profusion of percentages.
He discussed "5.2/5.3pc of GNP", before moving on to "a stimulus of the order of 1pc of GNP" and then informing the House that "we are already investing about 21/2pc more as a percentage of GNP in capital infrastructure next year based on existing plans".
Horror
And just for good measure, even as the Department of Finance mandarins were unveiling the full horror of the tax deficit, Brian reassured all and sundry that his Government's measures would ensure that the job would be oxo "when the upturn comes". Oh goody.
Eamon Gilmore strived mightily to prise the precise figure of the tax shortfall out of Brian's clam-like mouth. The Labour leader pointed out that there were only minutes to go before the figures were released publicly. Still the Offaly Oracle spoke in vague pronouncements of doom.
"This year, November is a disappointing month and next month also will follow on from that," he admitted. But still no figures.
"I want to maintain the convention regarding the issuing of November returns in the normal way, but I want to say to the deputy that there would be a deterioration on the 5.5pc projected deficit for this year," he dodged doggedly.
Eamon was nigh on tearing his hair out. "It's half four now, so you're kind of released from the convention," he said pointedly. He wanted to know "the bottom line".
"And if you could express that in money terms rather than in percentage terms," he said with a huge effort at diplomacy. "If you can just give us the bottom line figure, I think that would be helpful to us in terms of understanding where we're at".
But right to the end, the Taoiseach stayed schtum. It wasn't until the last moment as Eamon Gilmore continued to harangue him for clarity, that he crumbled, and muttered something about "two billion". But his microphone wasn't on, so his moment of truth went largely unheard.
And, meanwhile, the Other Brian was taking a linguistic leaf out of his boss's book. After the release of the dreadful figures, Brian Lenihan declared that, "It is essential that further measures are identified to ensure the sustainability of the public finances".
In a word, cutbacks. At last a classical education is coming in handy.
