THE Eurocrats, already reeling, got another shock this week. Last weekend the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern and his ministers, when speaking of our monetary expectations in Berlin, said we hoped to receive four billion in the divvy up, and they rabbitted on about same. So complicated have the negotiations become that most people didn't react at all to the figure.
Those in the know though, particularly the Eurocrats dealing with budgets and the Irish, thought £4 billion was wildly off the mark and wondered what on Earth was going on. If Bertie though thought he would get £4 billion this week he was riding for a fall.
On Monday, frantic queries came in from Brussels-based officials and journalists to their counterparts in Dublin querying the figure. How could Dublin be so overplaying its hand? Spokespersons, ever mindful of Albert Reynolds's £8 billion in Edinburgh and the drama over that, had to clarify in a big hurry. Bertie and his ministers meant four billion euros, not pounds. That's £3.1 billion, not £4 billion. But what's a billion here or there nowadays?