The truth is that the budget needs work — an awful lot of work. The budget needs a new wardrobe, the budget needs make-up and the budget needs a whole new range of props . . . possibly showgirls. The script needs serious attention and cuts, cuts, cuts. Above all, what the budget needs is a plot.
The budget has no plot at all; that’s why it makes such crap telly. It is so boring that it is undemocratic: they don’t want us to watch it.
Eddie Hobbs, the presenter, summarised Tuesday’s budget as “a list of tribal favours with no strategic vision”, which seems about right. These tribal favours are the cause of much excitement. What with the leaks and the media jumping up and down over the past couple of weeks, it seemed quite likely that Michael Noonan was going to announce a cure for cancer. Instead he cut the Universal Social Charge — a bit. This caused a great kerfuffle — it seemingly all part of what one commentator called our insatiable desire for being bought with our own money.
Everything else was just confusion, as all budgets are designed to be. Does anyone really know what kind of tax system we actually want? We should just drape the Dail in wisteria and acknowledge that the budget is like Midsomer Murders: an old chestnut that is endearingly predictable but with no narrative drive, creaking its way into 2016.
The finance minister is Chief Inspector Barnaby and the public expenditure minister is Detective Sergeant Charlie Nelson. The former is listened to in respectful silence and the latter is not.
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Surely the time has come for Chief Inspector Noonan and Detective Constable Howlin to stumble upon the corpse of some social policy, but no, any idea about the future direction of the country is as rare as that shy Irish creature, the entrepreneur.
Like Midsomer Murders, the budget is terribly long and full of people acting their socks off, and shouting, but at the end you realise that the whole thing does not hang together in any way whatsoever. And then you hate yourself, because this is exactly how you felt last year, and you’ve wasted two hours of your life.
The budget cannot continue to rely on the serendipitous moments of theatre to thrill its audience. Clare Daly and Mick Wallace looked terrific as they sat together — she in black lace and he pretty in pink — but they are too small a minority. It would be much better if the whole Dail dressed that way, and that should be arranged as soon as possible. Come on guys, time to slip into something less predictable. We’re thinking here of the TV licence fee, which costs €160 per annum, and not thinking of the salaries of our public representatives (because we’d only get upset again).
Similarly, it was wonderful when all the TDs in the chamber turned over the same page of their scripts at the same time: a truly magical moment which Busby Berkeley would be thrilled to see. However, is that moment really enough to compensate for Brendan Howlin saying that childcare provides “both socio and economic returns”?
No, Brendan, no, no and again no. Even Winston Churchill, hardly an exemplar for modern fathers, managed to put a bit of heart into it when he said “there is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies”. That was in 1911, and he wrote his own speeches.
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The television coverage of the budget needs a rethink, because it seems to be verging on Stalinist propaganda. I started the afternoon watching UTV Ireland (well, somebody has to) and their “news update” caption read: “The job of recovery is not complete and is fragile though strong.’’ This is not so much news as a North Korean motto. It was difficult to know whether to be delighted or depressed by it. Maybe both.
At that point, the budget speeches were just starting and 3e was showing The Jeremy Kyle Show. TG4 was showing The Weakest Link. Most attractive of all, the siren song of Come Dine With Me was emanating from More 4. The list of enticing British television programmes tugged at our sleeves as Mr Noonan told us that “the centenary of the Easter Rising is an opportunity to reflect on the journey travelled over the past one hundred years. To recall the many major social and economic challenges along the way”.
We’re trying to forget all those challenges actually, Michael, because we don’t share your sanguine view of their outcomes.
Fianna Fail responded to all of this with a little light rioting. “Stay quiet and cut out the comedian stuff,” shouted Seán Barrett. At one point during Mr Howlin’s speech, I even thought I heard the ceann comhairle shout: “Just stay quiet, it’s nearly finished.”
Mr Howlin ended his speech by telling us that everything is grand, “as we set our course for a better Ireland.” The public went back to watching British television. Everything went back to normal, or whatever passes for normal in Midsomer.
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