Miriam Lord: Many hands make light work of Grope Budget

Covered in more paw prints than a Donald Trump tootsie.

The lads spent all day and all night boasting about how much their hands were all over it.

We feared the main speeches might be difficult to read because of all the smudges.

Imagine the sniggering conversations among the Independent Alliance and Fianna Fáil guys:

Micheál Martin: “I gotta tell ya, when you’re in a minority government, you can do anything to a budget. You can grab every piece of badass good news you want, and they’ll let you.”

Boxer Moran: “Finian! Your allocation’s hot!”

Finian McGrath: “Whoah! Whoah! Whoah!”

Willie O’Dea: “I moved on Leo over Social Welfare. I moved on him. It’s true. He wanted to do it in June but I made him give it in March.”

Shane Ross: "The pensioners love me. I gave them five extra smackers a week. It's true. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case they start kissing me."

Sean Canney: "Look at the size of that sheep package."

Denis Naughten, fondling his broadband signal: “The Independents have scored. Woo-hoo!”

Fine Gael TDs: "Government is beautiful. We're automatically attracted to beautiful – it's like a magnet. We do whatever we want to hold onto it."

Enda: “Whatever we want. I love beautiful.”

Everyone: “Pass the Tic Tacs.”

Success has many handlers (in this case, three: FF, FG and Independent). They all owned and pawed the Grope Budget.

And they were most pleased with themselves yesterday. Although in private, the various groupings holding this 32nd Dáil together were comparing the size of their estimates and bigging themselves up.

Some of the Fianna Fáilers disparaged Independent Alliance claims that, due to their irresistible charm, they had their way with Michael Noonan and Paschal Donohoe and thus begat the lion's share of the big concessions.

Not so, insisted the TDs from Fianna Fáil, the Almost Opposition party. The goods the Independent Alliance said they grabbed in the early hours during last-ditch negotiations in Government Buildings had already been well-inspected and approved by them.

In fact, as far as the Almost Opposition party is concerned, anyone can see that it is their hands which are all over the main body of the budget.

Micheál Martin was very happy with his team’s handiwork. So much so, that the healthy eating devotee threw caution to the wind by mid-afternoon, headed to the canteen and bought himself a mini-blueberry muffin.

He didn’t care. It was that sort of day.

“A significant achievement,” cried his finance spokesman, Michael McGrath, in the Dáil. “Today’s budget is a better budget because of the influence we brought to bear.”

Hug each other

Much earlier in the day, on the way into the final, final pre-budget cabinet meeting to take place since Thursday’s final cabinet meeting, Shane Ross, of the alliance, declared: “The Independent Alliance has got its imprint all over this.”

This general acclamation led to one of the strangest budget days in Leinster House. It took over three hours, after the speechifying began, for a properly critical response to the Government's financial statement.

This came from Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty, who wondered why Michael Noonan and Michael McGrath didn't just cross the floor and hug each other.

A fair point, seeing as their hands were already all over each other’s budget.

He also supplied the phrase without which no budget day is truly complete.

Its utterance usually falls to the first spokesperson from the main Opposition party but, as Fianna Fáil is now an Almost Opposition party, neither McGrath nor his public expenditure colleague, Dara Calleary, was able to oblige.

They therefore missed the opportunity to announce “this budget is a missed opportunity.”

But Pearse was up to the task.

Early in his reply to Noonan and Donohoe, he pleased the budget anoraks when he produced the magic words: “We are at a moment of real opportunity. An opportunity as the economy grows to chart a new course. To build a fair economy and grow employment. To reduce the cost of living, To invest in public services, to deliver tax fairness and to invest in our future and our children’s future. Today is a missed opportunity.”

It had to be said.

The day began with the traditional photocall on the steps of Government Buildings with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure showing off copies of their financial statement.

They seemed very relaxed as they strolled through the sunshine, smiling away. Both wore dark grey suits and ties with the same pattern of small checks.

Small cheques, that must be an in-joke with the mandarin.

Michael Noonan went for daring with a tie in a rich shade of purple – or grape, as the purists described it – while Paschal Donohoe, the younger man on his first budget outing, opted for sensible navy.

It was a lovely scene and, if there hadn’t been a red velvet rope in the way, we might have rambled over to take a selfie with Paschal, slip him a €50 note and tell him he was looking lovely on his Confirmation Day and his Granda must be very proud of him.

Acid response

Why they bother with this big annual set-piece carry-on is anybody’s guess. Everyone already knew what was going to be announced, the details having been comprehensively leaked.

So, it was definitely a giveaway budget because the people whose hands were all over it had given away its contents.

In the Dáil chamber, the air crackled with indifference before the statements began.

Donohoe looked a little nervous on his big day, but his family was in the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery to support him – his mother Cáit, wife Justine and young children Oscar and Lucy – with pride. When Paschal rose to speak, Lucy pointed to the monitors with great excitement.

Michael Noonan, as is usual these days, delivered his speech in an exasperating whisper which proved too much for the much-vaunted sound system in the chamber.

As the two men spoke, their opposite numbers across the floor studied their typewritten scripts, making little notes in the margins and correcting the odd word or two.

In other years, they would have been scribbling furiously on sheets of foolscap as the budget speech progressed, trying to cobble together suitably acid responses to what they had just heard. There has always been some sympathy for Opposition spokespeople challenged with the task of replying to the Government’s scripted opener.

This year it was a walk in the park for them as they barely questioned the budget they helped to put together.

“We have come a long way,” said Noonan, adding that the budget is the “first step on a new road by a new government.”

Because there can be no budget without a road map.

“Many believed that the Government would not still be in place by the time budget day arrived, but here we are” said Paschal, to an outbreak of happy smiles and hear’ hears from the budget gropers – without whose helping hands it might never have seen the light of day.

The media, meanwhile, rushed around demanding to know the location of the banana skins. The best available information was that "the mammies of Ireland are going mad on Liveline".

It seems that stay-at-home parents were not happy with the tax breaks given to crèche owners to pass on to families.

Some were calling it the “Sugar and Sheep” budget because sheep fared almost as well as children in the giveaway stakes and it was announced that a sugar tax is on the way, but not just yet.

Richard Boyd Barrett left his speech in the toilets, but it was retrieved by reporter Fiach Kelly who gave it back to him after announcing his find on social media and recording the touching handover for posterity.

“Crumbs and scraps that will mean nothing to the lives of ordinary Irish citizens,” fumed Richard in the chamber.

It seemed like not only the budget, but their Dáil approach to it had also been cooked up by committee.

Both Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath praised their partnership Government by adapting the same phrase from Yeats.

“When I look at the remainder of the Opposition here today,” said McGrath, “I am convinced that the centre has to hold.”

And Donohoe: “Those of us in the middle ground of politics have a duty to show that cooperation and consensus can work . . . to show that things won’t just fall apart and the centre can hold – and stay firm.”

Their hands on, Grope Budget.