"YOU HAVE heard of economic boom but what about economic bloom? Leopold Bloom, that is, the main character in James Joyce's Ulysses whose spirit was invoked by Ruairi Quinn in the Dail yesterday.
Ruairi was announcing an allocation of £100,000 to the James Joyce Centre in Dublin. Now who would have guessed Joyce was a Labour man?
Since the centre is in Bertie Ahern's constituency this is one Budget goodie Fianna Fail won't spurn. Like Leopold's wife, Molly, their response will be "Yes I will yes."
Ruairi was in cracking good form, and why wouldn't he be as he rides the Celtic Tiger into the next general election? As he listed the economic benefits of the Rainbow Regime the covert message to voters was simple: You've never had it so good.
Backbenchers grunted their approval at regular intervals and there were pleasure-filled moans of "hear hear" as Ruairi outlined his programme of "Planned Giving" for the year.
"This is the biggest tax reduction package in the history of the State," Ruairi told them. Micheal Martin, the Steve Silvermint of Fianna Fail, tried a bit of clean-cut heckling but was soon squelched by the Mighty Quinn: "I know this is making you sick but try and listen."
The loudest cheers came, not from Ruairi's own party but from Fine Gael. "Well done!" said the super-feisty Michael Ring, as though Mayo had scored a goal in the All-Ireland. Mary Flaherty tapped her desk with a pen in demure applause.
Apart from John Mulvihill of Cork - Labour's answer to Thady Quill - the socialist benches were relatively subdued. Indeed Clare's Dr Moosajee Bhamjee, who sat up the back with his head propped up by his fist, looked quite, quite bored.
And who was that figure wafting wraithlike through the chamber? Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was Michael Lowry. He appeared just before the end of the speech, when Ruairi was doing his "vision" bit.
Like a man who had seen the Michael Collins movie too many times, the Minister recalled how the fledgling Free State had left the imperial nest all of 75 years ago "to pursue a destiny and a vision of its own" and we were the inheritors of that vision.
But Fine Gael's P.J. Sheehan as always had the last word. Wagging a finger at Fianna Fail he said: "`Twas a pity ye didn't grasp that vision 75years ago."
Pity poor Charlie McCreevy who had to reply to all this. A temperance lecturer in a dockers' pub would get a better welcome than he received from the Government benches. "You're doing well against the tide Charlie," said Fine Gael father-figure Paddy Harte.
Ruairi may have quoted James Joyce, but Charlie opted for Oscar Wilde, who was much sounder on the national question anyway.
McCreevy compared the Rainbow Regime to Oscar Wilde on his death-bed where the Great Man said: "I am dying as I have lived - beyond my means.