BUDGET SKETCH:NO BIG surprises — except a personal one for the Minister for Finance.
One of his sons, Michael (29), flew in from London yesterday morning to surprise his dad.
As the Minister imparted his personal nugget with a deadpan twinkle, you could see he was delighted that “the real Michael Noonan” had been in the public gallery to watch him deliver his first budget.
But apart from that, he refused to see the occasion as a big deal: it was just another day’s work. Although in the long political life of Michael Noonan, it very definitely was a big deal.
Just a couple of years ago, when it looked increasingly likely that Fine Gael would return to government after more than a decade in opposition, Noonan told us he wasn’t interested in returning to cabinet.
Then Enda Kenny made him his finance spokesman after last year’s failed leadership heave. Michael played a blinder. The landscape changed for him — personally and politically.
“Times change,” he mused during February’s election campaign. And sure, if he was offered a position in the next government, he would be honoured to accept it, whatever it might be.
But while he never said it, it was clear he wanted Finance, despite declaring at the time that “things are going to get dreadful”. He wasn’t wrong either.
Yesterday afternoon, Michael Noonan finally got to stand on that side of the House which was off limits to him on so many budget days.
We had become used to him delivering his typically punchy and insightful replies to a long succession of Fianna Fáil ministers. They were a rare entertainment.
How many of them did you do, Michael? “Ah, I dunno. Maybe four or five. Let’s see: there was Ray MacSharry and Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevy and of course, dear old Brian Lenihan, Lord rest him. And Brian Cowen.” Then he does a double take. No. Not Brian Cowen. He laughs. “I was something different then.” The wilderness days.
It’s nearly teatime and Michael leaves the chamber to do a succession of radio and television interviews. After playing the role of attacker with accustomed ease, he’s lining out for the defence now.
How do you think you did? “I’ll let you lot be the judge of that. I just read a script.” There must have been times though, when he stood to deliver yet another opposition riposte to yet another budgetary statement, when he thought he would never get the chance to sample the experience from the government side of the chamber. “It seemed I was always the girl who never caught the bouquet at the wedding. I was like the bridesmaid,” he grins.
“But I always knew I would get there.” And he went off down the corridor to meet his first microphone, the unlikeliest looking bride in Ireland.
As he padded out of sight, Labour’s chief whip, Emmet Stagg came flying around the corner in urgent conversation with a couple of colleagues.
When Michael Noonan left the Dáil chamber, few noticed Labour’s newest backbencher also leaving.
It was Patrick Nulty, who was elected as a TD for Dublin West in a byelection just give weeks ago.
By five o’clock, he had left the parliamentary party fold, unable to live with some of the measures introduced by Labour Minister Brendan Howlin on Monday in the first part of Budget 2012.
That’s three people overboard now. The waters around Eamon Gilmore are getting increasingly choppy.
First Willie Penrose, then Tommy Broughan and now Patrick Nulty.
Fine Gael sails on, happy with what their man did yesterday.
“Their budget was more of a Labour budget than ours,” complained one backbencher after Noonan’s address. When he finished, they looked markedly happier than they did when Brendan Howlin completed his speech.
Even the Opposition remained relatively mute while Noonan spoke. Had it not been for Joe Higgins, gamely harrumphing at key points, it would have been the quietest budget speech in the history of the state.
Downstairs, the bar was like a morgue. It closed early on Monday because the House rose in the late afternoon, but there was no excuse yesterday as the sitting continued into the night.
Budget day is one of those occasions when deputies bring groups of supporters in to experience the atmosphere around Leinster House. The authorities routinely removed the tables along the centre of the bar and took away most of the high stools to accommodate the crowd.
Not yesterday. Some deputies complained that the rules had been changed and they were told they wouldn’t be given the usual four or five passes to bring in visitors. They were not amused.
Michael finished with a tribute to the late Brian Lenihan — Brendan Howlin also remembered him in his speech the day before. He began with a nod to history, noting “on this day, 90 years ago, on the 6th of December 1921, the Treaty was signed...” The British “gave Ireland back her purse”. It’s gone again now, he said, and it’s the Government’s job to get it back.
He made his own history too. It’s 30 years since he was first elected. He finally got to make that budget speech.
