When is a cut merely a reduction in spending?

SKETCH:Minister for Finance has a wide range of euphemisms when it come to describing cuts, writes MARIE O'HALLORAN

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that a politician, particularly one in Government, never likes to say “cuts”.

But it is something else entirely when a Minister for Finance, imposing the most swingeing cuts ever to stop the slide over the economic cliff, still cannot bear to utter that little four-letter word.

It’s a case of whatever you say . . . say “saving”, “adjustment”, “deduction”, “levy” or even “reduction in spending”.

But it seems the world might just end if you actually say “cuts” or “cutbacks”.

Suggestions for other euphemisms will no doubt be gratefully received in Merrion Street as Minister and speech-writers struggle for ever bigger words to describe what will be coming down the road for at least the next three years.

And so not a sign of a “cut” as Brian Lenihan did a very hard sell in the Dáil to explain his €1.16 billion “achievement” this year that will result in an average drop in pay, 7.5 of per cent for public servants from March 1st, through the pension levy legislation.

Ah, sorry, he did actually say “cuts”, but in a different context entirely. This levy “medicine” will hurt, but far less than “other measures including across-the-board pay cuts, large tax increases and redundancies”.

The hard sell was impressive, but not to Labour’s Joan Burton who described him as Micawberish, in reference to the character in Dickens’s David Copperfield. Always in debt, he lived by the principle that “something will turn up”.

And something may turn up for some if one of the references in the Minister’s speech is clarified, that the Minister has powers to “exempt certain groups from the deduction or modify the extent of the deduction if he is satisfied they are materially distinguished by some particular aspect of their employment terms from others subject to the deduction”.

A whole gaggle of unemployed lawyers have probably already been re-hired to examine that get-out clause.

But if the Minister was worried by Micawberish comparisons he might have been cheered up by arrows slung from the Government benches.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen who said on Wednesday that Enda Kenny had impugned his integrity with references to the so-called “Anglo 10”, stated that it was obvious “if you throw enough mud some of it will stick”.

The Green Party’s Paul Gogarty has used this to his advantage on a number of occasions and yesterday was no exception. Fine Gael has consistently hit out at the absence of the Greens from the Dáil benches when reference to the banking scandals and Anglo Irish Banks comes up.

But the Greens always have a comeback with their policy of not accepting corporate donations. So in a bid to share the blame for economic woes, he pressed a few Fine Gael buttons, shouting at them that “you’ve been dipping into the dirty pot, so take your share of the national responsibility”.

He also indulged in a little understatement with his reference to the debate on a “not particularly happy subject”.

But Fine Gael were outraged by his references to corruption and Bernard Durkan demanded a withdrawal. He would not withdraw, although he did say that Bernard and colleague Alan Shatter were “without blemish”.

Alan Shatter, however, seemed unperturbed by Deputy Gogarty’s remarks, asking how could he be taken seriously when at a public meeting in his constituency he felt the need at one point to roll around the floor.

Deputy Shatter’s only sorrow was that the incident hadn’t been videoed “so we could all have a laugh”.