Spare us the lecture and show us the money

Noonan wants us to spend, spend, spend but why is a Fine Gael Minister now acting like a Fianna Fáiler?

MICHAEL NOONAN – what is he like? He’s like a cross head teacher telling third years to start writing on the walls. He’s like the policeman handing rocks to vandals. He’s the doctor saying “Yerra, one drink won’t hurt you”. Wait a minute – that is what Irish doctors say.

And we have a Minister of Finance who is saying: “ What we really need is for people to go into the shops and start buying again” (Irish Independent, Friday 24th June. What can I tell you, I went out and bought that newspaper).

Yes, we are debt-ridden and pretty damn poor, but we are rich in ministers of finance. First of all the late Brian Lenihan, who was remarkably popular considering he gave all our money to the banks; and now Noonan, who has somehow become a national treasure. Suddenly even people who don’t know who Michael Noonan actually is, like him. They nod at the television and say “Your man’s not bad”. Michael Noonan understands that such remarks are the Irish equivalent of the Congressional Medal.

So, the Minister of Finance is regarded by most of us as “a good thing”, and also as “a poor thing” because who on earth would want his job? And he is mad to get us, the traumatised Irish public, spending again. Yesterday he went on the This Week radio programme to say he was really talking about encouraging tourists spending. This is confusing. We know he’s talking about us. For years he droned on and on (no offence, Michael) about how the economy was wrecked. And it is. And now he wants us to rush out and spend the measly €134 billion we have saved.

Well, we did our best at the Arnotts sale – one pair of sandals, reduced to €60 – but we do not wish to commit ourselves further at this time.

We’ve had years of being told we borrowed too much and were the credit sluts of Europe – we didn’t know about Greece back then – and that our spending was reckless, useless and probably immoral. We watched as the banks tanked and pension funds shrivelled.

We tutted as alleged taxi-drivers allegedly bought up the country that is allegedly Bulgaria. And now, just because the Central Statistics Office is revising some of our grimmest economic statistics, Michael wants us to run down the shops and shout “The Milky Bars are on me”.

Not going to happen, Michael. Because, you know what, we’re not in the humour. It had been thought our economy had crashed by 14.6 per cent since 2008. Then the Central Statistics Office surprised itself by finding out that it has only plummeted by 12.6 per cent. And that still doesn’t put us in the humour. Michael may want us to regard this recalculation as good news, but the ordinary person is sitting there thinking “Mmm, that’s still in double figures”. And she’s opening a tin of beans, Michael.

You can’t win as an Irish shopper. During the boom you were told you were shopping too much, and newspaper commentators sniffed at you in a superior way. Now you are living in either poverty or under a self-imposed shopping fatwa, on the grounds that shopping is so last decade. Then along comes Michael Noonan and says you have to get back in there and spend, spend, spend.

I would very much like to know when you last bought something, Michael. Or when, indeed, anyone in Government last bought a household item of any significance. We know what you Fine Gael boys are like. Careful. Very, very careful. Fine Gael will put on its cardigan as Fianna Fáil turns up the thermostat. Everybody knows that. And Fine Gael parsimony has been proved right. Please don’t confuse us any further. It is adding to our general unease that it is a Fine Gael Minister who is telling us to hit the shops. It doesn’t seem right somehow.

We grew up in a world in which Fianna Fáil spent money it didn’t have and Fine Gael wouldn’t spend the money it did have. Since the foundation of the State, as we like to say in The Irish Times, the Irish population has alternated between the two states of mind, and the two parties, as economic circumstances dictated. The thing that is crucial for you to understand, Michael, is that the country is in a Fine Gael phase now. We’d much prefer to curse the darkness than splash out on a candle.

Michael, we thought that that’s what you would have wanted us to do. You’re going to have to show us that spending is alright. Instead of our Taoiseach attending leaders’ summits in Brussels and making Nicolas Sarkozy laugh – and we’re not convinced that Nicolas Sarkozy was laughing in an altogether benign way – he should be in some Irish shop, shelling out for white goods. And so should all the rest of them – James Reilly has plenty of money, so let’s see the colour of it.