ISN’T IT great that the budget now comes in two parts? Because you know you’d hate to miss any of it.
Minister for Public Reform Brendan Howlin will announce cuts today. And then Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will do everything else tomorrow.
Some people are saying that this is just so Mr Howlin’s party, Labour, can claim its place in the sun; or, in this case, the horizontal, endless rain.
But of course that is completely untrue. First of all, this two-day Budget idea is part of a modern trend to extend whatever used to be a one-day event over as much of the preceding week as possible. Weddings, hen parties and stag parties, budgets . . . Children’s birthdays now cover three days.
Only the Catholic funeral, with its custom of removing the remains to the church the night before currently in decline, takes up less time these days.
The main thing about a budget is how much television it can ruin, interrupt and rearrange.
Just because we’re in a recession doesn’t make that okay. Don’t they understand we need the TV more in a recession. The schedules are all we have.
Never was The Late Late Toy Showwelcomed so warmly by those who would not hitherto have dreamed of watching it.
On Friday night the most cynical people in the country (which is everybody) grabbed tumblers of gin with trembling fingers and muttered “God bless us everyone” as we watched little children manoeuvre large pieces of plastic about the place.
Television is a life raft now. We rely upon it.
And don’t those naughty boys in television just know it.
TV3 refused to cancel its Sunday-night edition of The Xtra Factorin order for the Taoiseach to make his address to the nation. At first, TV3 point blank refused to carry the address to the nation. TV3 needs ad revenue and viewers: in its refreshingly simple opinion the nation does not want to be addressed.
The Irish public has yet to rise up in outrage and tell TV3, with patriotic tears in its eyes, it is mistaken in this view.
The Taoiseach's fireside chat went out on RTÉ just after the Nine O'Clocknews. But shouldn't it have gone out on The Week in Politics? Isn't that what The Week in Politicsis for?
The poor Taoiseach must be content to go where he is put; no mere human can seem quite so solid as a budget.
Part one of the Budget will be broadcast live this afternoon between 2.30pm and 5.40pm. That’s how important the Budget is. Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
According to the RTÉ Guidefor today, it is business as usual. At 2.30 this afternoon we'll be just about in the middle of EastEnders.
Or about to launch into the undimmed pleasure of an episode of Scooby-Doo!on RTÉ2. God knows the prospect is tempting. But those tantalising choices, as presented by the RTÉ Guide(and also by the Sunday Timestelevision schedule) could turn out to be empty promises, designed to curry favour with the public.
As it is, it looks more than likely that, thanks to Brendan Howlin and the Budget part one, we're going to miss Catherine's Roman Holiday(sea bass with pistachio, and pea and pesto risotto, according to the Sunday Times's television pages).
We're also going to miss Fair City, Four Liveand The Daily Show, all of which should be on RTÉ One. And sure isn't well worth it so that we might listen to Government cuts?
Or, if you're the RTÉ Guideand the Sunday Times, we're not going to miss them at all.
The RTÉ Guidein this and in many matters is a parallel universe, and in many ways a more humane parallel universe at that.
The Sunday Timessimply can't keep up with the quixotic nature of our politicians' demands.
Sometimes you can’t help feeling that the Budget is used by irresponsible types to commit acts of vandalism on the schedule. Tomorrow brings us the Budget part two. Or, as we Noonan fans like to call it, the real Budget, from 3.05pm to 5.45pm.
Then there's the Prime TimeBudget special. After the news at nine this evening, the night of The Budget part one, we have a FrontlineBudget special, for an hour-and-a-half. And then a one-hour programme on an old political party called the Progressive Democrats (Be quiet. They were very popular.)
How much parliamentary politics can one country stand?
Is there to be nothing but their doings on our television screens? Even the politicians don’t think they’re this popular.
Perhaps next year our budget could be a week-long special, spread over five nights.
We could vote on it. Wouldn’t that make a pleasant change?