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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
Nov/Dec 2016 1 3
was also named a possible recipient in the
arrangements.
At the early October meeting of the PAC,
Noonan defended his position and argued that
he was not legally empowered to interfere with
the NAMA sale. He rounded on committee mem
-
bers, notably Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein,
who clearly got under his skin when she ques
-
tioned his failure to intervene. He tetchily
reminded her that her colleague, Martin McGuin-
ness, the deputy first minister had not expressed
any concerns over the recommendation of
Cushnahan as a member of the NIAC by former
Stormont finance minister, Sammy Wilson in
2010.
He told Fianna Fáil members of the PAC that it
was their man, the late Brian Lenihan, who had
passed on Cushnahan’s name to NAMA as an
appropriate appointment to the NIAC at the time.
However, nothing could disguise Noonan’s
discomfort at being subjected to detailed ques-
tions about his role in the controversy over his
hours of evidence during which he was accused
of bluster by McDonald.
His reputation as a financial guru who has
safely steered the ship through the Troika years
into economic recovery has also been severely
dented not least by his miscalculation of the
available ‘fiscal space’ or financial reserves in
the Fine Gael election manifesto earlier this year
and over his dithering on the question of the
massive tax avoidance by US multinationals and
vulture funds.
When the full extent of the climb down in the
face of the Garda threat of all out strike
became known on the eve of the mass walk out
by AGSI and GRA members of the force, Noonan
commented that he was taken aback by the
potential €50m-plus cost of the eleventh-hour
deal proposed by the Workplace Relations
Commission.
But nobody, in government not to mind oppo
-
sition, believes that the finance minister would
not have been aware of the concessions on pay,
overtime and allowances given to the Garda to
avert their industrial action. Whatever about sec-
ondary teachers, Fine Gael in government was
determined to protect its law and order creden-
tials no matter what the cost to its public-service
pay strategy.
The bill is potentially huge and the most imme-
diate threat to government stability and finances.
The debacle has incensed the most ambitious of
those keen to take over as party leader, Leo Var-
adkar, who has insisted that none of the monies
to pay for expected public service pay restora
-
tion will come from his social-welfare budget
allocation, a view echoed by most in cabinet.
Negotiations with the Public Service Commit
-
tee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will
commence early in the new year on a new deal
to replace the now-holed Lansdowne Road
Agreement not least to avert a series of pay and
other claims from nurses, junior doctors and
others who are tempted to follow the lead of the
guards. They will also have to ensure that provi
-
sions in Lansdowne Road to protect thousands
of low-paid health, local authority and other
workers from outsourcing, an agenda never far
from the bureaucrats in government buildings,
are maintained in any new deal.
Public-sector pay is not the only storm on the
horizon with the deepening crisis in the health
system ready to engulf patients and hospital
staff over the winter months, the continuing
housing and homelessness scandal, more of the
annual flooding that ruins the lives of so many
people in the west and south and the inevitable
tantrums that emanate from nervous members
of the Independent Alliance who are keeping the
weak coalition in power.
Then of course there is the problem of Fianna
Fáil, which knows that it can only keep this gov
-
ernment on a life machine for so long until it
realises that its electoral prospects are being
more damaged than protected by the so-called
confidence and supply arrangement. Many of its
TDs are nervous of the consequences of agree-
ing a second budget with the government given
the lack of any bounce it received from the mini
-
mal improvements in social welfare, tax and
other benefits from the first one of three they are
tied into.
Micheál Martin and his troops also know that
one of their strongest cards as they face into any
new election is Enda Kenny. If Fine Gael replaces
Kenny (along with Noonan, most likely on health
grounds), with a new, younger leader then all
bets are off. Like Bertie, a trip to Washington for
St Paddy’s Day may be the Mayo man’s swan
song with an election to follow within months.
The sooner the better, you might say.
Before the Budget officials’
nerves were frayed, not
by the budget, but by the
minister’s date with PAC
about Project Eagle
