Leinster House was at the mercy of a chill wind and hot air on budget day, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
AN HOUR before kick-off, the only serious noise around Leinster House emanated from a group of chanting, dancing Congolese men and women down the street outside the EU offices.
Their banners weren’t about household charges or excise hikes. They showed images of bloodied corpses and of President Kabila, a man they call a “killer”.
After that, everything seemed rather tame and predictable, even “Shell’s begging bowl” at the Leinster House railings: a grimy toilet.
A rather elegant man, well wrapped up in a hat and coat, held up a banner with the legend: “5 point plan? 3 point turn”. The man was Robert Morgan, a 44-year-old artist, “with degrees coming out of my ears. I’ve reached my tipping point. I’m sick to death of hearing about share prices and Moody’s. This situation is splitting families.” Otherwise, the nation was lying low.
Inside, it was business as usual. Apart from an emotional Mick Wallace and his hotly debated demeanour – of which more anon – and the chill that penetrated the very heart of the house. It wasn’t a metaphorical chill either. Visitors wondered if a Bundestag diktat had declared central heating verboten. Passing an usher hunched in a chair, Senator Jim Walsh asked cheerfully if it was the cold. “No”, said the usher. “Just fear.”
And yet, wouldn’t it be a powerful message if the Government was taking its example from the founding fathers by shutting off the heat? Sadly, it’s just a system problem.
When Michael Noonan started up, to a chamber packed beyond the railings with TDs and Senators, Joe Higgins did the heckling. It’s as natural as breathing. “Hit the disabled instead of the rich.” “More speculation.” “€280 billion in assets and you don’t tax them at all.” There was the odd light moment. “Here come the fags,” said a forlorn voice as Noonan got into excise duty. That was Finian McGrath, known to like a ciggie or two. “I’m in trouble now,” he wailed. When Noonan explained he was leaving it to Róisín Shortall to legislate on low-cost alcohol, Higgins said wearily: “This Government would drive anyone to drink to be honest with you.”
Replying for Fianna Fáil, Michael McGrath adopted a wounded tone. His despairing reference to upwards-only rent reviews lit a fuse under Bernard Durkan.
“How did they come about? How did they come about?” bellowed the Kildare man.
By the time Pearse Doherty’s turn came, Noonan had left the chamber, which gave Doherty the opening to say he’d gone to take calls from the Bundestag.
The best line of the day was Doherty’s next: “I’ve no desire to come here and criticise.”
By the time Mick Wallace got up to speak, Government representation had been whittled down to about 15. Looking exhausted in his pink polo shirt and jeans with his blond curls caught in a ponytail, he spoke like a man on the edge of despair.
In print, his words read like a summary of everything we already know; in the flesh, his voice was breaking and at times, he seemed to be in tears. He talked of poverty as “relative”. “When making comparisons, we would look at what others have against what we have or our kids have. People think there cannot be poor in a country where most people have mobile phones. However, it is not like that. I would rather be poor in La Paz in Bolivia than poor in Dublin.” He talked about the disillusionment with the EU – “this country thought . . . it was joining a family of nations . . . that the principle was that the strong would help the weaker” – and of “a serious democratic deficit”. He quoted from a Guardian article by Larry Elliott describing the EU’s problems with the democracy and “the unelected cabal of up to eight people” who call the shots in Europe. He talked of the EU “neoliberal slant” and about the closing of Army barracks, Garda stations, small pubs and nursing homes. “One could ask what it will be like to live in this country in 10 years’ time if we keep going this way.”
He finished by quoting Albert Einstein and saying that the people expected Oireachtas members “to give a damn”.
When he finished he walked out, swiftly followed by Fine Gael’s Peter Mathews and the Socialist Party’s Clare Daly, with Martin Ferris giving him a consoling back rub as he moved through the chamber door. Daly returned after a few minutes, soon followed by Wallace.
Peter Mathews said later that he went out with Wallace because he “seemed upset” and because he was having a difficult time in other parts of his life. “But his speech was like a moment of stillness from the cut and thrust of a budget day speech. It left space to reflect.” Many would disagree with that analysis. Perhaps you had to be there.