Coalition hopes modest proposals will perform confidence trick

DÁIL SKETCH:ROLL UP, ROLL UP for the Great Coalition Confidence Trick! It's clever. And now, they must hope the people buy it.

In fairness to the Government, they were nothing if not up-front yesterday about the nature of their much-awaited “Jobs Initiative”. How to make something out of nothing? This was their problem.

When the new administration opened its wallet 10 weeks ago and prepared to implement some of the promises they made before the election, they discovered they hadn’t any seed money. But they still had to find some way to get the economy back on the right track.

Difficult, when you are strapped into a “revenue neutral” straitjacket.

But Enda and Eamon think they have found a way, and it fell to Michael Noonan to explain it to the nation.

“The direct stimulatory effect will be modest” he confessed as he set about restoring Ireland’s battered and tarnished ring of confidence.

So, with much fanfare and following a series of carefully choreographed announcements, he dickied up existing expenditure and deftly slid chunks of capital under different hats until his audience was left to marvel at his ingenuity and, with any luck, to loosen their purse strings.

“Despite constraints, it is still possible to make policy changes for the better,” he declared.

If his fiscal sleight of hand goes to plan, people will start spending again, and this in turn will create more jobs, which will stimulate the economy – and the whole financial fairground will start to spin again.

But how many jobs? The Taoiseach took to the steps of Government Buildings to scatter a little more magic dust on the initiative.

“It is impossible to put a figure on the number of jobs to be created through a resurgence of confidence.” But the figure could be huge, he indicated, given a fair wind and a return of consumer spending.

In the absence of hard cash, there’s nothing like a bit of political alchemy.

Tourism, reckons the Government, might just turn our base bottom line into employment gold.

It’s all about confidence.

To this end, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have pressed two very impressive figures into action.

Her Majesty, the Queen of England, has been identified as a laying hen when it comes to the job of boosting the British tourist spend here. So too has the President of the United States of America. Barack Obama will be lucky to escape our shores later this month without having to wear a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” hat and twirl a shillelagh for the dollar-rich diaspora.

Meanwhile, the locals are also expected to pitch in their pennies.

Enda urged everyone to holiday at home for the foreseeable future. “Which I will be doing myself.” (Brian Cowen can recommend a nice caravan park in the west to him for Fionnuala and the kids.) Of course, inviting the Queen and the President over here will involve a lot of expense. The gardaí have already sealed up every manhole in Dublin in advance of their visits, and the price of pouring drink into the advancing hordes of ravenous hacks – the Taoiseach told the Dáil nearly a thousand journalists are expected – will be of bailout proportions.

However, one must speculate to accumulate, and the Government is very confident of getting a return on its sizeable investment. Barack and Ma’am are what might be called Loss Leaders.

Not that Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance is impressed by this. He got so exercised over Barack Obama’s visit that he got into another row with Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett yesterday. RBB accused the chair of abusing his position “It’s abuse. It’s abuse! It’s abuse,” cried the Boy Barrett. “You had better withdraw that remark or leave the chamber” bridled the Chair Barrett.

RBB shook his head and muttered something under his breath. “No!” he retorted petulantly, before instigating a one-man walkout.

It was almost teatime before Michael Noonan got his chance to perform the coalition’s confidence trick.

Reduced VAT for hotels and restaurants, cinemas and theatres. Reduced VAT on admission to fairgrounds and amusement parks – although there is currently no charge to enter Leinster House.

Hairdressers are getting a break too.

Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea, standing in for finance spokesman Brian Lenihan, was very taken with this particular measure. He had done a quick calculation. “It’s cost me €19 now” Willie told the Dáil.

“For the moustache?” somebody asked.

Baldy Noonan smirked across the floor at his hirsute constituency colleague.

But Willie seems determined to take advantage of the trim in the VAT rate, “provided I get my hair cut by the end of 2013”. We’d settle for him getting a few inches off the moustache – it was very difficult to hear him speaking as his lip appeared to be absorbing most of the sound.

The Government benches applauded Baldy when he concluded, then a series of press conferences kicked in for the evening, beginning with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste and ending with Minister Noonan.

And to set the ball rolling, they expressed full confidence in themselves.