And if the Taoiseach repeated in Davos some of the lines he spouted in Dublin before his departure, the assembled European oligarchs will have cheered him to the rafters.

Kenny is in danger of becoming a hero in Europe and a villain at home.

Enda’s trip to the top peoples’ ski-ing resort was meticulously planned. A pity he blew it.

His message was not new — Ireland has turned the corner, and we are a shining example of how a bailout country can recover. Just the message that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and all our European masters wanted to hear.

This time Enda went to meet the uncrowned kings and queens of Europe well-armed. As evidence of the new confidence in Ireland’s progress, a well-schooled Kenny cited Wednesday’s successful Irish bond swap. A day before his departure, the Government had pulled a financial stroke.

In a perfect piece of timing, the sycophants in the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) had persuaded holders of a short-dated Irish government bond to switch into a slightly longer- dated stock.

The NTMA presented this manoeuvre as a triumph. They despatched Enda to chilly Davos armed with this weapon of good news.

When he arrived in Davos Enda duly played the “bond swap” card as evidence that Ireland was poised for a return to the bond markets. Which was nonsense.

Back in Leinster House, ministers were swaggering in the corridors as they whispered loudly about a breakthrough. Ireland, they insisted, is different from Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. There were buyers of Irish bonds out there. The NTMA’s wheeze provided a timely boost to the propaganda war.

No doubt Kenny was simultaneously telling Sarkozy, Merkel and other premiers what he had repeated in the Dail last week: that Ireland’s growth rate would hit 1.5 per cent this year. Nothing could please his allies out there more. If we grow by 1.5 per cent this year, we should be on course to meet our deficit targets. Let us pray that Angela, Nicolas and the rest do not read the growth forecasts from Davy (0.4 per cent), the Troika (0.5 per cent), the Central Bank (0.5 per cent), Goodbodys (0.7 per cent) or the ESRI (0.9 per cent). If they do, they may conclude that they are being sold a pup by an economic illiterate.

Worse still, they might realise that all the palaver surrounding the overhyped bond swap belonged in the same world of fantasy economics.

The NTMA sent its spinners into overdrive after the swap had been arranged. In advance of the Taoiseach’s arrival in Davos, press reports at home suggested that investors had responded “enthusiastically” to a deal that allowed them to exchange existing two-year Irish bonds for new three-year equivalents carrying a higher interest rate.

The Irish Times led with a headline: “First sale of Irish bonds since 2010.” The Irish Independent matched it with: “NTMA ‘very pleased’ with huge success of debt swap.”

Cabinet ministers were on a high.

They should hold their horses. Instead, they should have asked who these investors were. Were they insurance companies seeking safe havens? Overseas pension funds in search of secure income? Or even hedge funds anticipating a quick buck?

Were the smart boys in the market piling into Irish bonds? Not for a split second. Short- dated bonds of this sort are not held by long-term investors seeking reliable dividends. They are ultra-safe securities for risk-averse investors.

Yes, you guessed it, the vast majority of their holders are banks.

More pertinent still is the specific identity of the banks holding these securities. Let us make an intelligent guess. During the banking crisis, foreign investors fled short-dated Irish bonds. Irish banks’ share of this sector rocketed to more than 50 per cent.

So who were the agreeable investors doing the switch that so pleased the Government and its NTMA puppets?

It was Irish banks who did the bulk of the business.

And who owns Ireland’s banks?

You guessed it — the Irish Government owns AIB, Irish Life, Anglo and 15.1 per cent of Bank of Ireland.

Ho hum.

Stockbroking sources told me last week that the four native banks were the most eager players in the much- vaunted bond swap, the deal trumpeted from the rooftops by the Government and the NTMA.

Another dealer said that he was sure Irish bankers had their arms twisted by their state owners to wear the green jersey before Enda hit the Davos slopes. Dolmen Stockbrokers’ daily bulletin mentioned banks doing their “patriotic duty”.

Barry Nangle, Davy’s head of bonds — the only Irish dealer in government bonds — was quoted as saying that “the significant majority of investors switching were the Irish domestic banks”.

Do you smell a very large rat?

The green jersey is back in the bond markets.

Enda is not likely to have told them this in Davos.

Instead, he will have been able to remind the European elite of yet another piece of good news that will leave them salivating. He could quietly tell them how he stuffed the opposition at home last week and agreed to pay the full €1.25bn due to Anglo bondholders. He could curry further favour by insisting that he was under no obligation to do so, but he himself decided that Ireland’s credibility in global markets merited payment of the Anglo bonds in full.

Enda’s commitment to pay the bondholders will do nothing but harm to our long-term prospects of returning to the markets.

Goodbody Stockbrokers issued another word of warning to the Taoiseach last Thursday. While conceding that the bond swap was a “positive development”, it added “we should not be getting overly carried away… it does not change the debt burden, which continues to balloon upwards. Indeed, Ireland will still have a funding requirement of more than €18bn in 2014 even after yesterday’s bond swap.”

Bingo — but Enda has already snookered Ireland with yet another rash commitment, this time on the debt burden. Last week, he told the Dail that the talks between Finance Minister Michael Noonan, the ECB and Commissioner Olli Rehn were about the terms — or the cost — of the debt burden. There would be no demand for any write-offs of the principal. We would honour the entire debt burden. Music to the ears of European bankers.

Enda’s Davos audience will have been delighted with his visit. Here was a sovereign prime minister who had blamed his own people for their “mad borrowing”; who was going to pay off the entire debt to save the European banks; who was repaying surprised unguaranteed bondholders a shock bonanza; who was promising a delusionary growth rate of 1.5 per cent; whose domestic banks were wearing the green jersey in a co-operative effort to puff up the market in Irish government bonds.

If Enda remains so intent on pleasing his European audience, he will soon be more welcome in Davos than in Dublin.

On the agenda was the progress of this newspaper’s attempt to compete with the dull business supplements then emerging from our competitors. As so often happened with Aengus, there was a sense of friction when anyone tried to snipe at his staff or his products.

The management type was unenthusiastic about the tone of the pages, and distinctly sniffy about our descent into critical populism. He had been receiving flak from his business chums. They were meant to feel that this was their section. It should be authoritative and far more business-friendly.

Confident that the sort of heresy the business section was pursuing would appeal to him, I looked to Aengus for support.

Aengus was unpredictable as ever. He was vehement: “Do you know the one thing I do not want to see in my business section?” he demanded. Both of us looked puzzled, because with Aengus you never knew what was coming next .

“What?” asked the management type, expecting an ally in the editor for his assault on the dangerous populist streak that he found so offensive.

I wondered was Aengus about to fulminate about the scantily clad blonde we had used on the front page the previous Sunday or the footballer the week before.

No, he was now in full flight. “There is only one thing I never want to see in my business section. And that,” he paused, “is figures. I hate figures. They bore the nation to death.”

The management type was gobsmacked. It was obvious that he thought he was dining with an editor who had gone walkabout. He pleaded that a business section without figures was impossible. I was delighted. Aengus refused to yield an inch.

That was Aengus. He challenged everything. He was totally unintimidated by his bosses in Middle Abbey Street, often openly expressing contempt for their knowledge of how to sell newspapers.

The idea of a business section without figures was typical of the man. Of course, he was not deadly serious, but he believed business — like life — was about people, not numbers. It did not need to be boring. He never cared about the difference between GDP and GNP, nor did he feel the readers gave a toss.

Aengus never took his eye off the reader. He was obsessed by the readership figures. And his obsession was vindicated by nearly three decades of success, as the Sunday Independent topped the league tables year after year.

His unorthodox approach to everything guaranteed them their Sunday fix, happy in the knowledge that they were going to be entertained and informed in a far more arresting way than by any of his competitors.

He was not easy to live with, but he was wonderful to work with.

A delicious thought occurs — that our persecutors will soon have egg all over their faces. All we now need is icing on the cake. What a bonus it would be to see Sarkozy bite the dust in the French presidential elections in May, and for Angela Merkel to be similarly humbled next year.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Last week the technical group of independent TDs were invited to meet the troika. Presumably our persecutors had been warned to expect a motley crew of headbangers, to be polite to them, to answer their questions and flee across the road from their current workplace in the Department of Finance to their five-star hotel for a well-earned stiffener.

Mick Wallace, Catherine Murphy, Clare Daly, Mattie McGrath, Stephen Donnelly, Richard Boyd Barrett and I trooped into the Department of Finance to meet the troika.

Eight troika members eyeballed us across the table.

The encounter was practical and professional. None of our delegation had backed the troika’s deal with the Irish Government. None welcomes their presence, camped as they are in control of the Merrion Street fortress.

The questions were direct, the replies polite. Challenges were put to the troika about growth rates, privatisation, austerity, promissory notes and exports.

The troika team was impeccably polite. But a message emerged. The troika was as wed to the deal as the Irish Government. Pride was at stake. The IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission gurus echoed the heady optimism of Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin. When asked about the supersonic growth rate (1.3 per cent) projected by the Department of Finance — whose hospitality they were enjoying — they began to purr.

They protested that our exports were resilient, pointing out that we were big into drugs and IT services. When challenged with the far lower Davy growth estimate (0.4 per cent) or Goodbody’s (0.7 per cent), they would only go so far as to admit that the higher ones were “optimistic”.

They were true to their word. Two days later the troika slashed its own growth projections down from 1 per cent to 0.5 per cent, leaving the Irish Government marooned on 1.3 per cent. The visitors were scuttling away from embarrassing in-house forecasts. They should have tipped off Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who only a day earlier in the Dail had pinned his colours to the Department of Finance’s over-the-top 1.3 per cent figure.

By Friday, most predictions for 2012 growth were looking similar. The troika now came in at 0.5 per cent, Davy at 0.4 per cent, the Central Bank at 0.5 per cent, Goodbody at 0.7 per cent and the ESRI at O.9 per cent. Out on a limb stood the mandarins, predicting 1.3 per cent growth this year.

Let us wait for the climbdown. They will call it a “revision” when it comes. Expect a footnote on a press release on Easter Sunday.

The troika was bullish. They talked of net export figures being good, of 2011 being better than expected, and of the great capacity Ireland has shown to find new markets. Claiming that foreign direct investment was strong, they anticipated a rebound in exports in 2013. They sounded like spokesmen for the Government. Borrower and lender spoke with one voice. Both are puffing up the prospects of success for the package.

Ireland is top of the troika’s class. It seemed that the visitors have spent too long bedded down in the Department of Finance, where misplaced optimism is endemic and infectious.

Questions about awkward independent forecasts that we would not meet key GDP targets in 2015 were parried as being premature. There was no need for what they euphemistically called “re-engineering”. Decoded, they were signalling that they would not tolerate loose talk of a “second bailout”. No one mentioned this monster that dare not speak its name, but the same monster was hovering over all 90 minutes of our talks.

The penny suddenly dropped. The troika, far from being our tormentors, are joint-champions of the deal. But have they goofed? Are they suddenly afraid that they may have backed a loser? They are like bankers who have made a doubtful loan. So they are busy talking up their book, hoping that the world and the European economies will recover in time to rescue them.

The troika, and not Ireland, is on the hook. Less growth means less taxes. Less taxes means higher deficits. Higher deficits means targets missed. Down that road lie second bailouts, even default.

The tell-tale signs of self-doubt were visible at their press conference. The troika has suddenly organised an escape hatch. The IMF suggested that Ireland should avoid carrying out more “fiscal adjustments” if it suffers an economic shock this year, but any slippage should be made up later. The scene is set for possible failure. Then, like Mr McCawber, the troika will have to depend on something turning up.

At the press conference the troika publically patted the Government on the head for meeting the agreed targets — in the first year. The dark reality is that they were congratulating themselves. Brendan Howlin, the Labour minister for hardship, responded in kind to their plaudits by talking about our “good allies in the troika”. Both debtor and creditor were struggling to impress the global markets with their well-orchestrated love-in.

The tic-tacking between the two interested parties has been masterful. When we met the troika on Tuesday, hard questions about privatisation and taxes from Clare Daly and Mick Wallace elicited surprise responses that would have pleased their “ally” Brendan Howlin.

The troika delegates insisted that they had not prescribed any privatisations. They wanted to see certain semi-states “restructured” and competition in the market. Contrary to media perceptions, they were not pressing the Government to raise any specific amount from the sale of State assets. The figures in the public arena of between €2bn and €6bn did not come from them.

Manna from heaven for Brendan, giving him the opening — at his own press gig — to reveal that the proceeds of privatisations could now be used to create jobs.

He had won this concession from the troika. The money raised was not exclusively to pay off the debt. Prepare for job-friendly privatisations courtesy of the Labour Party. A nice one-two.

Both sides are spinning with gusto. Indeed, each has developed a brilliant technique of passing the parcel to each other. The leader of the European Commission delegation, Istvan Szekely, told us that they had merely prescribed the basic framework, but the Government must select the areas to cut.

He pointed out that the measures had been chosen by a democratically elected government and passed by the Dail. Both parties shared a common interest in seeing Ireland returning to global markets as soon as possible.

What a neat fit with the government line. Ministers in turn duck every penal measure by pointing the finger at the troika. Each party conveniently diverts the flak towards the other.

That would be fine if the final pipedream that saw us paying back our debts, returning to global markets and achieving the Department of Finance’s fantasy growth rates, was a reality.

Instead, there are now two fingers not one, in the dyke. Unfortunately, we are still likely to drown along with our new “allies”. Despite the rhetoric, the dyke remains in serious danger.

-

Good citizen that the Taoiseach is, he is surely equally a believer in the second bailout of Ireland?

I hate to point out to him that there is far stronger evidence for the inevitability of the second bailout than for the second coming. And the second bailout is, sadly, probably a little more imminent.

Enda thinks the second coming will arrive first.

His blind faith has led him into porky country. And in a week when porkies were two- a-penny, Enda was the star performer.

It was a close-run thing. He was nearly pipped at the post by Ulster Bank.

Last Wednesday, the Ulster Bank decided to lay off 950 staff. Like all bankers, the top dogs blamed “global and local economies”. Nothing to do with Ulster Bank, of course.

Prior to the announcement, when asked if redundancies were on the way, a sniffy spokesman brazenly insisted that Ulster does not do “speculation”. Quite a porky from one of Ireland’s and the UK’s top speculators. Its parent company, RBS, was bailed out by the UK taxpayer after recording a loss of €24bn — the biggest in British corporate history. Most of the loss was due to “speculation”.

Ulster itself followed its parent’s lead, losing hundreds of millions in Ireland after a bout of property lending to high-profile borrowers like Bernard McNamara and Liam Carroll. The sight of the plutocrats in Ulster looking down their noses on speculation in any context is a bit rich.

Not quite as rich as Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s denial of a second bailout.

Last Thursday Enda went to London to mend fences with British Prime Minister David Cameron. The current occupant of Downing Street is reported to be miffed that Enda fled from the Anglo- Saxon corner at the last European summit. After Cameron’s opt-out from the European fiscal compact, Enda is scared stiff that the City of London will escape the Sarkozy-Merkel plot for a financial transaction tax; that Dublin will be clobbered by the measure and that financial service companies located in Dublin’s IFSC will desert to a far more tax- friendly City of London.

So Enda took a hasty trip to Downing Street to butter up Cameron. He addressed a Reuters beano with cliches about the harmony between our two nations and with waffle about how essential it was for the UK to remain at the heart of Europe.

Unfortunately the awkward press corps did not give a hoot about Enda’s inanities/overtures, but were keen to know the chances of a “second bailout” for Ireland.

Enda was forced to peddle a porky. He “absolutely rules it out”.

Enda was on the back foot. The planned cosy rendezvous with Cameron had been hijacked by Dublin’s latest domestic controversy about a second bailout.

Enda went into denial mode. And no one believes him. Except Michael Noonan and a handful of loyalists.

The controversy was sparked by the arrival of an impolite visitor. Top Citigroup economist Willem Buiter flew into Dublin on Monday, dropped a bombshell and exited. Buiter started the ball rolling downhill by predicting that Ireland would need a second bailout on “non-market” terms — meaning more help from the Troika.

It was terribly tactless timing by Buiter, on a day that the Troika was back in Merrion Street examining the nation’s books to see if we were keeping to the terms of the first bailout.

Cabinet ministers were reported to be furious with the visiting Citigroup economist. Michael Noonan must have been especially incensed. While the Troika was camped in his Merrion Street office he denounced the sudden talk of a second bailout as “ludicrous”, adding that we were fully funded until 2013.

Enda and Michael were frantically trying to roll the ball back up the hill. They were joined in their unconvincing effort by a spokesman for Olli Rehn, European commissioner for Economic Affairs. No surprise there, Olli being one of the architects of the first bailout.

And that is just about where the salvage operation stopped.

Mr Buiter is far from a lone voice predicting a second bailout. The ranks of independent commentators have lined up on the side of the Citigroup man.

Most powerful of all the signals is the message from the market. Currently Irish 10- year bonds are trading at 7.75 per cent and two-year bonds at 5.5 per cent, rates suggesting that there is little hope of Ireland repaying its debts within the promised period. The markets are the most coldly detached judges of all. They are giving Ireland the thumbs- down.

Why ? Well, ruthless bond dealers are looking at Ireland’s shrinking growth forecasts, rating the possibility of our meeting the targets as slim.

Perhaps they have been reading last week’s Ireland 2012 Outlook report from Goodbody Stockbrokers. Its predictions were gloomy. Goodbody’s slashed their growth forecasts for 2012 by half, from 1.3 per cent to 0.7 per cent. The brokers predicted that Ireland will miss its target of cutting its deficit to 3 per cent of GDP, a key condition of the deal with the Troika and that domestic demand will remain weak.

Goodbody, yet another independent observer, is adamant that “if current policies continue, there will be a need for a second aid package”.

Unfortunately for Enda and Michael, other independent players have stampeded into the ranks of the non-believers.

As long ago as last July Moody’s ratings agency downgraded Ireland’s credit rating because of the “growing likelihood” that Ireland will need more bailout aid in late-2013 when the current rescue ends.

The loyal old mandarins in the Department of Finance were furious.

No doubt they were equally angry when Professor Tony Foley, another independent economist –this time from Dublin City University — claimed on Wednesday on RTE’s Morning Ireland that a second bailout was “inevitable” and insisted that we should be praying that the Troika would be willing to facilitate it.

But the killer blow came when RTE revealed mid-week that US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was warned by his officials that the first Irish bailout could be derailed by poor growth and a lack of Government spending.

The “second bailout” contagion is out of hand. Independent voices from everywhere are coming to a consensus. The Cabinet and its puppet agencies are isolated.

The Government can still seek refuge in the support of its puppets. Puppet number one (the Department of Finance) is still stubbornly forecasting growth of 1.3 per cent. Puppet number two, the overpaid sycophants in the National Treasury Management Agency, are stating that the NTMA “shares the minister’s view that speculation on a potential second bailout is without merit”.

What a surprise. Overrated civil servants rarely challenge their masters.

Bond dealers’ livelihoods depend on getting the market right. Civil servants need to please their employers. Whose judgement is more credible? The markets or the puppets?

Willem Buiter, the independent economist from Citigroup, warned his audience last Monday that Ireland should prepare for the second bailout. Enda would prefer to take his chances on the Second Coming.

Next I breeze past the adjoining historic Powerscourt Arms Hotel, a listed building with a proud history. Then I glance at the landmark Enniskerry clock tower (1843), buy the papers and return home to digest the news.

Last week, the car park was closed. It was blocked by steel barriers.

I was a bit nonplussed, but I assumed that the owners of the Powerscourt Arms Hotel had decided to fill in the potholes. Alternatively, perhaps this was a mundane safety issue? Whatever the reason, it is always a tonic to see this beautiful Wicklow village being tarted up.

What an innocent I was.

On my doorstep, a typical Irish business bout is brewing. A hopelessly uneven contest looms. In the right corner stand the mighty trio of a big banker, a top-dollar solicitor and well-heeled accountants. Heavyweights ACCBank, KPMG and Matheson Ormsby and Prentice (MOP) are standing shoulder to shoulder.

As they eyeball the left-hand corner opposite, they gaze contemptuously at a few featherweights — a humble hotel, struggling shops and local residents. Big bucks and financial clout are confronting small businesses. A knockout beckons.

ACCBank (now owned by Dutch giant Rabobank) has sent in the receivers to close the car park adjoining the Powerscourt Arms Hotel. The receivers are KPMG, their solicitors are MOP.

No doubt there is plenty of money owed to our foreign banker friends. They were foolish enough to lend the new owners of the Powerscourt Arms property a big lump of cash. Back in 2005, South Dublin Construction paid €8m for the Powerscourt Arms Hotel and car park.

The purchasers tried to build unsuitable apartments on the car park site, were mercifully turned down and are now left with a pretty worthless strip of tarmac in their lap, enough for about 50 cars.

It seems that while ACCBank lent money for the car park, that the EBS more cannily lent €2.7m for the hotel. The hotel is a going concern. The car park, traditionally used by its customers and by the local community, is now being rendered useless to man or beast.

It is the only real car park in Enniskerry. It is used by visitors to the village, customers of the shops and patrons of the hotel. It is the vital vein for local business.

One Enniskerry resident told me last week (with a lively imagination that hardly reflects the historical facts) that the site had been a free car park since 1715!

The buyers leased the Powerscourt Arms Hotel to a couple of entrepreneurs who had no hand or part in the original speculative purchase. Their purpose was not to speculate, but to run a small business. Today their enterprise is haemorrhaging as a result of the bankers’ actions against the car park. No parking means no business.

The arrival of a receiver in the form of KPMG has been clouded by all sorts of legal red herrings, like who is entitled to access through which entrances, trivial arguments and a great deal of hot air.

Maps are being disputed, as though it mattered a damn where boundaries lay when jobs are in jeopardy. Accusations and vicious words are being exchanged. A security firm has been hired to patrol the barriers. Feelings are running high. Victims are believed to have removed the odd steel barrier in the dead of night. On Thursday, they were reinforced.

No one can blame the victims for taking action. Enniskerry is a typical Irish village with a string of small businesses clinging onto their solvency by their fingertips.

Hopeful entrepreneurs have come and gone in recent years, hindered by government measures and starved by the banks. Premises have frequently changed hands.

Many small businesses have somehow survived a litany of bankers pretending that credit is available — when it is not. They have cut costs to the bone, paid penal rents and somehow made ends meet.

Others have sunk.

The closure of the car park by the bank is punitive, not profitable. It is punishing the hotel operators, not the borrowers — the owners.

According to insiders, Christmas parties were cancelled, the staff feel insecure, customers are heading for Bray instead and the village is clogged up by double parking and traffic jams. Enniskerry, a key tourist attraction, is suffering. Tourism is supposed to be top of the Government’s recovery agenda.

ACCBank and its foreign owners do not give a hoot about Irish tourism. Its “scorched earth” banking policy was already highlighted in 2007 when it was hell-bent on selling properties owned by developer Liam Carroll for knockdown prices. ACC’s lending to Carroll was reckless, the same type of madness practised by Anglo and Irish Nationwide.

ACC decided to cut and run, hoping to gain first mover’s advantage , ready to extract its pound of flesh from Carroll’s crumbling corpse.

It is impossible to fathom how ACC hopes to profit by putting iron walls around a virtually worthless area that has served as a public amenity for decades. Its quarrel is with the developers who borrowed against the property. The only people suffering are the innocent.

Is this a new departure for a bank? It is holding a village as hostage in an attempt to put pressure on a consortium of outside developers. Such behaviour is perfectly legal, but chillingly unscrupulous.

Why has the bank not — at the very least — offered to lease the car park to the hotel?

The tale of Enniskerry is probably not yet repeated in such an unsavoury form in other Irish villages. We are conditioned to expect bankers to bully their weak customers by playing havoc with their loans, overcharging them and generally deceiving the public.

The ACC experience suggests that, despite all the recent political rhetoric, they are still a law unto themselves.

They can pursue their narrow interests while they share equal guilt in creating the problem. ACC made a diabolical error of judgement by lending money to a company to construct apartments that would never sell.

The consequences of that loan have been deeply harmful. ACC bears a responsibility for such reckless lending — equal to the misjudgement shown by the borrowers, the original developers. Yet ACC has opted to inflict collateral damage on small enterprises and businesses in an effort to settle a spat with their fellow speculators.

We are already enslaved to European bankers. Rabo of Holland (through its ACC subsidiary) is being allowed to strangle a tourist centre. It is time for burden sharing. Both borrower and lender are at fault. The lender must pay part of the price.

Last Thursday, it emerged that possibly the biggest drag on our economic growth was the sluggish spending by ordinary punters. The banks are instruments in stunting this growth.

Today, not only are they starving patients of oxygen, they are injecting carbon monoxide into invalids.

You ain’t seen nothing yet. Worse is to come. And worse could have been prevented.

The coalition cannot blame the troika, burn effigies of the IMF’s AJ Chopra or beat up on the last government for this one. This is their own handiwork.

The mother of all stings is waiting for you in January.

On December 5, Minister Brendan Howlin announced that he was cutting the state subsidy to CIE by €21m.

Not a bad idea as CIE has in recent years been exposed as a swamp of waste and skulduggery.

Quangos like CIE and its three subsidiaries — Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann and Iarnrod Eireann — are in dire need of efficiencies. There is plenty of fat hidden in the darker corners of these bloated bodies.

On December 9, just four days after Brendan had taken his brave step, a friendly quango rode to the rescue of CIE and its three little quango babes.

The National Transport Authority quietly announced that it was giving the go-ahead for a whole range of rises in bus, train, Luas and Dart fares. Dublin Bus was given the green light for 15 per cent increases in cash fares. This little grenade was lost in the budget furore and European crisis.

In one leap the three quangos had beaten the cuts. The reduction in the subsidy was neutered. There would be no need to take the axe to the wasters in the quangos. Ordinary commuters could make up the shortfall.

Travellers on Dublin Bus and other routes had been picked off. They have no alternative but to travel on the monopolist’s buses. Those who spend as much as €20 a week on bus fares will pay an extra €150 next year — more than the €100 household tax. Many punters will pay both.

It was a wonderful comradely gesture of the National Transport Authority quango to give such an uncharacteristically speedy response to the minister’s attempt to put manners on CIE. Barely 72 hours waiting for a lifeline, CIE can continue to do what it does best: presiding over the overpriced shambles that affects to offer a public transport service. One good quango helps another.

The friendly quango issued an explanation for its decision. It read like an apologia for CIE.

Incredibly, the first paragraph offers the eight per cent cut in the state subsidy to CIE as the primary excuse for letting fares rip.

Quango logic at its best. The response to Howlin’s cutback to a spendthrift quango is to crucify the masses. Switch the burden on to the vulnerable. Spare the upper echelons at CIE. The apologia went on to list the economic downturn, increased fuel costs and earlier subsidy cuts as justifications for the punitive price increase.

The NTA even blames emigration, immigrants returning home, unemployment, and lower tourist numbers. The NTA fingers everybody but CIE for the problems at the company, even boasting that it has not yielded to Dublin Bus’s application for fare increases of between 25 per cent and 36 per cent!!

The statement goes on to admit that the revenue from the increased fares will exceed the reduced subvention. So Dublin Bus was a net winner on the week. Quite a neat piece of sleight of hand.

The Transport Authority frantically tried to shield itself from criticism by announcing the launch of the new Leap Card. This gimmick is public transport’s belated gesture to the high-tech age, an integrated ticketing system to allow some commuters to soften some of the price hikes on some of the routes.

A mysterious tortoise, this Leap Card creature. It suddenly appears on the platforms a few weeks before the January fare rises. Amazing how these things can be done so quickly in the slovenly semi-states. Especially as the Leap Card has taken nine years to create!

Is the Leap Card value for money? The National Transport Authority did not tell us how much the Leap Card cost to develop.

Guess: Was it €50,000 of taxpayers’ money? €500,000? €5m? €55m?

You got it in one. The total cost of developing the Leap Card, after nine years, was €55m.

Most of the revenue from the fare increases in the first few years will be spent paying for the Leap Card. This little project must rank with E-Voting machines as one of the most reckless wastes of taxpayers’ money in the last decade.

Nevertheless CIE and its fellow quango are brazen enough to parade it as breakthrough.

The NTA should have refused all fare increases, demanded an explanation why the Leap Card took nine years from start to completion and cost the taxpayer €55m. They should have satisfied themselves that all the malpractices at Iarnrod Eireann had ended before even considering a price rise for any CIE company.

Instead they peddled the CIE line, supported by its downtown office — the department of transport.

The National Transport Authority is a captive, a quick learner of the quango culture. It was set up in 2009 to supervise Ireland’s public transport shambles. It went native immediately. It has been highly politicised from Day One. Its board is picked by the minister for transport and includes at least one real Fianna Fail peach.

Its annual report buries the names of its directors at the very back on the final page in the last appendix. It fails to give a single line about its well-paid board members (apart from their names) but we know they were chosen by former minister Noel Dempsey, a man who was never shy about promoting Fianna Fail favourites for quango gigs.

The Fianna Fail peach is a Donegal FF councillor. Daithi Alcorn was appointed to the NTA board in the dying days of the last FF/Green coalition after already being a director of the National Roads Authority (NRA).

Other NTA directors are beneficiaries of the quango merry-go-round.

This NTA quango deserves recognition. It serves a real purpose. It shields the government from the political charge that it was the villain that put up public transport fares. Last week in the Dail, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore answered a question about the fare hikes with the same NTA/CIE/ Department of Transport line: after brandishing the Leap Card he insisted that the government was detached from such a sensitive decision. It was not the government’s business. The NTA set the bus fares!

Not strictly true. The government has the power under legislation to issue guidelines or policies to the NTA. What better use of these powers than to freeze fares.

Alternatively, they could require the political appointees on the board to stop the rises.

The political appointees on the NTA board have already earned their five-figure fees. They are being shoved out there in the front line to take the flak for the Government.

The Government has made a virtue of leaving income tax untouched. They did not need to. If you live in a house, you are clobbered. If you take a bus, you are impoverished. If you drive a car, you are crippled. If you save money, you are punished. If you have VHI cover, you may be mugged.

There is still an alternative: we could burn the bondholders and throw the quangos on the same bonfire.

The decisions needed to be “clear”. The “action” needed to be “decisive”. The solutions must be “durable”.

All three conditions were achieved.

Eamon told the Dail that the Taoiseach had approached the meeting with an “open mind”. He can say that again.

So open was the Taoiseach’s mind that any result would fit into it. Enda and Eamon wrote their welcome long before the “agreement” was reached.

It is a pity that the outcome was such a minus for Ireland.

Of course, the Taoiseach and Tanaiste could not have known what was in the final package. Neither of them was invited to attend the real action. Just before the fateful dinner, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel were due to hold a private meeting with ECB boss Mario Draghi, summits chairman Herman van Rompuy, Commission chairman Barroso, Commissioner Olli Rehn and other non-elected eurocrats.

No reports of the conversations in that meeting have surfaced. Indeed, it is now uncertain (following leaks to Reuters and Bloomberg of the encounter) that it even took place. But it is clear where the real power lay: in the hands of the Franco German duopoly and the top eurocrats.

Enda was sidelined. Small nations are not invited to the top tables. They sign up to loss of sovereignty instead.

The Taoiseach issued a statement just before Thursday’s RTE Nine O’Clock News suggesting that the sustainability of Ireland’s debt was laid on the table.

“Bravo,” we cried. Enda was playing hardball.

Hardball turned out to be soft spinning. Ireland’s debt disappeared from the table as fast as it was laid there. The summit did not give a moment’s consideration to our penury. Ireland was throwing shapes.

The summit went from bad to worse. Our closest trading partner, the UK, refused to sign up for treaty changes. The UK may be isolated, but the consequences for Ireland are deadly serious.

The UK’s financial centre, the City of London, will write its own rules. Ireland’s Financial Services Centre (IFSC) will be competing with a neighbour free to offer far more attractive terms.

The IFSC will lose out. Dublin’s rules will be made by Merkel and Sarkozy. London’s rules will be made by Cameron. If the new group of 17 signs its own agreement, Ireland will be further isolated from a natural ally.

We are certain to suffer further bullying.

Our Government took one firm position. It was lining up behind the need for the European Central Bank’s intervention to support the euro. It wanted to see an ECB commitment to eurobonds.

On Thursday, Mario Draghi put an end to that little aspiration.

Nothing we wanted materialised. Nobody was listening. Our debt is still hideous and unpayable. The UK has left us more isolated. We are committed to signing up for fines if we breach strict fiscal disciplines. We are heading for fiscal union. Despite our reluctance, we are likely to be forced to hold a referendum.

Wait for the Government’s spin to hear how Enda Kenny and Lucinda Creighton saved the euro. And, of course, how — once more — they saved Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporate tax .

The corporate tax rate was never under threat last week; but the new deal was what Mario Draghi ominously called a “a step forward”.

The next “step” is fiscal union. After that, corporate tax will be in the hands of Angela and Nicolas.

Guess where we go from there.

The writing is on the wall for Irish sovereignty. But at least we saved the euro for a week or two.

Neville Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938 declaring “Peace in our Time” will be in the halfpenny place. Stepping off the government jet, Enda will modestly reveal to a waiting media how he (with the help of Angela Merkel) has saved the euro.

Irish interests will have been “protected”; exports will be safe; the ATMs will work on Monday morning; Europe will have agreed to the same sort of “stability” mechanisms as Ireland had championed; the markets will be tamed. Enda’s gang of spinners will paint our eternal imprisonment as the great escape.

Last Wednesday in the Dail we were given a glimpse of Irish preparations for the summit of European leaders. Enda treated us to a masterpiece of camouflage. The first line of his speech promised to “brief the House ahead of the European Council in Brussels . . .”

It was a briefing without a single specific policy. Seven pages of empty rhetoric exposed the Taoiseach and his entourage as heading for Brussels stark naked. He gave no hint of Ireland’s demands, let alone our vital interests. The nearest he came to spelling out our approach was when he cravenly warned that “I will be reminding colleagues that economically Ireland remains vulnerable.”

He can say that again. And he did. Two paragraphs down he feebly repeated: “We will continue to need the support and solidarity of our European and international partners for some time to come”.

The Taoiseach took up the negotiating stance of a genuflector. He was inviting the masters of Europe to kick us when we are on our knees. No one will give us a kicking better than Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. They have had plenty of practice.

We will be the beggars of Brussels. Enda’s script spelled out our weakness in eurobabble that would have made our Franco-German masters salivate. We needed “clear decisions” to prove “our shared determination to protect our currency”. We would pursue “economic co-ordination in the euro area”. Rhubarb, rhubarb all the way.

The words of our leader’s speech were hardly crafted by a patriot in the Department of the Taoiseach. Instead, they were worthy of blind euro- zealots. The speech could have been written in the European Commission offices or dictated by President Barroso himself. At one point the scribe was carried away by his own enthusiasm: the script eulogised the “great” deal agreed in October “on banks, on the European Financial and Stability Fund, on restoring debt sustainability to Greece”.

The Taoiseach was nimble enough on his feet to drop the word “great”. Good thinking. Six weeks later the EFSF is a broken reed, rejected by the sceptical investment world; Greek debt is still a nightmare; October’s “great deal” is in tatters.

It took one of the Dail’s most colourful sharpshooters to denounce the Taoiseach’s words as “baloney”. Mattie McGrath, the fearless Tipperary South TD, rose to his feet and demanded the Taoiseach wear the green jersey.

McGrath was spot on. Our Government has been brainwashed by eurothink. Unable to put Ireland first, they have been seduced by European trappings, intimidated by ECB chief Trichet, Merkel and Sarkozy, flattered by the bowing, scraping and the grandeur. Cabinet members show signs of having been captured by the pomp of the Elysee Palace, the power of the Bundestag. Given a choice between Mattie’s green jersey and their own white flag they now instinctively reach for the symbol of surrender.

Anyone reading the foreign press would have known that the bones of a deal had already been cooked. It was less apparent from the code words used by Enda. According to the Taoiseach’s meaningless message, we will strengthen “economic union” and “economic convergence”. He prudently slipped in the need for “fiscal discipline”. He went so far as to concede the possibility of “limited treaty changes”.

We were being softened up for cataclysmic constitutional change. Ireland is about to embark on a final surrender of our sovereignty, dressed up as a package to save the euro. The last Fianna Fail government conceded a temporary capitulation when it shamefully landed the nation’s independence in the lap of the EU/ IMF. The present outfit is plotting to make our prostration permanent.

Europe’s next destination is already apparent. Germany’s Merkel and strong countries like Finland, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium are demanding “fiscal union” (not the more polite “fiscal discipline”) as the price for rescuing Europe. The weaker countries are squealing for the ECB to flood the market with liquidity to save the currency. The short-term fixers are in direct conflict with the long- term advocates of austerity.

Enda is squatting under the radar in the short-term fixers’ corner, positioning himself to join the stampede towards the hardline German haven.

Not surprisingly, his speech never once mentioned Angela’s “fiscal union” agenda. Last Friday morning the German chancellor had no such coyness, signalling that she is likely to give her blessing to an ECB intervention — provided she receives cast iron assurances on her pet project.

France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and other malingerers will be allowed to call the diktat “fiscal discipline”, but her message was clear: stronger countries will be able to veto the budgets of weaker nations. German, Dutch and Finnish lovers of austerity will dictate Irish taxation and expenditure measures to the letter .

All that nonsense beloved of Enda and Michael — about regaining our economic sovereignty when we have repaid our creditors — will be exposed as humbug. Fiscal union will terminally suffocate our aspirations to regaining financial independence.

Fiscal union means handing over our tax affairs to a European body, or even to a European Minister for Finance. Down that road lies tax harmonisation. Everybody in Ireland knows those two words spell an end to our 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate.

Last Friday morning Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore denied there was any fresh threat to our corporate tax. He is whistling past the graveyard. A mere few months after it was parked, the 12.5 per cent rate is back wobbling along the road to ruin. Last Thursday evening, Enda’s nemesis, Nicolas Sarkozy, had made a speech revealing his recipe for euro rescue. Nicolas’ words were a planet apart from Enda’s Dail offering.

Nicolas boasted about impending treaty changes. Ominously for Ireland, he talked about small countries losing their veto. His words sent a shudder running down the spine of every Irish citizen.

Not a very subtle way of telling Enda and other euro hangers-on that the corporate tax game was up; that Ireland is heading for satellite status.

Next weekend’s probable spin on how Ireland saved the euro should not convince anyone that we have bagged a good deal. When the euro is saved on Franco-German terms, we will face decades of subjection to a European tax and expenditure regime. We will become citizens of a European super finance ministry. We will have a gun put to our heads as we rubber stamp referendums to order.

The collapse of the euro is a terrifying prospect, but let us not portray an imminent humiliation in pursuit of saving the currency as a triumph for Ireland.

-

God knows, we need people of ability in the Department of Finance. We crave guys with experience of bad bankers and budget deficits. Kevin has both in spades.

Listen to Michael Noonan’s words on Thursday as the Cardiff carnival crashed to the ground. Insisting that the Fine Gael/Labour clique would stand by Kevin, the Minister for Finance declared that Kevin was “a decent civil servant with a long record, more qualified for the job than any of his predecessors”.

Quite a claim. Especially when he includes present Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, former cabinet colleague Barry Desmond and an assortment of civil servants in their number.

Indeed Michael should know. He has bedded down with Kevin for the last 10 months as the minister and secretary-general huddled together in the Merrion Street bunker. Michael is in a unique position to judge Kevin’s talents. So why is he letting him go? Especially as he holds him in such high esteem.

But Michael was not alone in being hypnotised by Kevin’s abilities.

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore circled the wagons around the beleaguered Kevin in the Dail on Thursday. Taoiseach Enda Kenny went one further on Wednesday when he contacted Joseph Daul, the head of the European People’s Party, begging him to rally his troops behind Kevin at the budgetary committee the following afternoon. Late in the day, the Irish powers-that-be realised that Kevin’s promotion was in danger.

Seven out of eight nominees flew through the nomination hoops on Wednesday. Kevin’s nomination was rejected by 12 votes to 11. Enda could not conceal his annoyance at the result when he claimed that “the shock result of the vote does not appear to reflect the quality of the hearing”.

Awful things, these secret ballots.

Bertie would have been proud of his prose.

The shock reverse was humiliating for Kevin, Enda, Eamon, Michael and Ireland.

The European People’s Party gave Enda its answer. In response to his pleas, those who are part of the same group in the European Parliament, gave the Taoiseach the two fingers.

Reuters picked up the story. ‘Irish government red-faced after EU nominee rejected’ blared the headline. The international news agency described the defeat as “a major embarrassment to the government”.

We were a laughing stock.

Would such a mishap ever happen to Angela Merkel’s nominee? Hell would freeze over first.

Kevin’s defeat revealed how low our stock has fallen in Europe.

Ireland carries no clout at the top table. The European People’s Party that voted Kevin down is allied to Angela’s Christian Democrats. Imagine the retribution if they had challenged Angela’s protegees.

But Ireland is different. A week earlier Enda of the European People’s Party and Angela of the same European People’s Party had met in Berlin. It was flagged as a meeting of equals.

Enda genuflected while Angela approved his posture.

All that genuflection has done Enda, Eamon, Michael and Ireland no good. Ireland has been given a pat on the head, while its candidate was given a flea in the ear.

The current Coalition thinks that it can treat appointments to European institutions the same way as it treats Irish quangos. Musical chairs for the loyalists or compensation for the departing. Merit is pretty well irrelevant.

Unfortunately for Enda, Eamon and Michael, Europe (unlike Ireland) insists on a pretty basic screening process.

The interview is not very demanding, but requires a minimum of information.

Like, how was there a €3.6bn mistake in the nation’s books? And what was candidate Kevin’s responsibility for the error?

Like so many mysteries in Ireland, the €3.6bn question is now under investigation. By the time the internal probe is over, Kevin could already be ratified. If it made adverse findings, what would the Court of Auditors do with Kevin?

The second worry was Kevin’s role in the banking crisis here.

It was pivotal.

Kevin was one of the key players on that fateful night of the bank guarantee in September 2008. Enda is fond of referring to that evening in dark terms when he is exchanging unpleasantries with Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin in the Dail.

Fair political jousting, but Enda should remember that his nominee for the European Court of Auditors is one of only two survivors of that fiasco. Kevin and deputy secretary William Beausang are the last men standing.

What ever happened to all the players who put the country in hock on that night?

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has been thrown out of office. Brian Lenihan is sadly no longer among us. Bank of Ireland chairman Richard Burrows and chief executive Brian Goggin resigned. Ditto AIB’s Dermot Gleeson and Eugene Sheehy. Kevin’s predecessor at the Department of Finance, David Doyle, has retired. Government Secretary Dermot McCarthy has departed with a €700,000 package. Financial Regulator Paddy Neary was forced out of his job. Central Bank governor John Hurley has retired. The Attorney-General Paul Gallagher has returned to the Bar Library.

All bar two of the principal players present on the night have left the stage. But not Kevin. He is heading for dizzier heights.

It is difficult to reconcile the disappearance of so many with the promotion of Kevin. Unless you understand how Irish governments think.

The European Court of Auditors gig is a piece of patronage in the hands of sovereign governments. It was given by his political masters to former Labour minister Barry Desmond. It was given by Fianna Fail to former FF minister Maire Geoghegan- Quinn. Second only to the commissioner’s job, it is the plum position in the government’s gift.

Remember that Bertie moved Charlie McCreevy to Brussels by elevating him to the commissionership. Charlie did not want to go, but Bertie wanted to see the back of him. Similarly, Kevin may not, after all, have been the most popular figure with Michael, Enda and Eamon. Was the opening in Europe being used as a vehicle to vacate the top position in the Department of Finance?

Enda, Eamon and Michael are now on a spit. They have praised Kevin’s talents to the rooftops. Their cavalier attitude to important posts, both at home and abroad, have landed them in this mess. They are unused to appointments being challenged by elected representatives.

Europe has rumbled us.

Enough arms will probably be twisted to ensure that Kevin will still be accepted by a full vote of the European Parliament. Otherwise the Government is faced with a nightmare scenario: the current secretary-general of the Department of Finance may be back in Merrion Street at the helm. After lavishing praise on him they will find it difficult not to welcome his return to the old job.

In recent weeks, I keep spotting the names of people whom I know personally landing on the boards of quangos.

The reformist regime has swept Bernard Allen on to the Sports Council.

Bernard is a nice guy, an ex-Minister for Sport, a former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and, totally coincidentally, a loyal supporter of Enda Kenny in the last leadership heave.

I knew Bernard when he was a TD. We travelled to Nicaragua together in the mid- Eighties as parliamentary observers. He was likeable, conscientious and good company. He was also one of the most committed blueshirts I have met in my time in the Oireachtas.

Bernard applied for the post on the Sports Council through the new public application process. Somehow, his name came out of the hat. An FG minister appointed him.

Fianna Fail would never have appointed Bernard. Nor would Fine Gael ever appoint a former Fianna Fail minister to Bernard’s gig.

The reformist regime has swept Brody Sweeney on to the top table at Bord Bia. I got to know Brody when he sought advice about how to become a Fine Gael TD. (Bad judgement, because I had flopped in pursuit of the same goal in the early Nineties!) He was a thoroughly decent man, was making a few bob with his O’Briens Sandwich Bar chain and wanted to “give something back”. We met for the odd breakfast. I remember advising him to demand the safe FG haven of Dun Laoghaire. He naively settled for the political minefield of Dublin North East, secured a nomination, but was carved up in the internal party plotting. He failed to be elected, but not before he was paraded by FG as evidence of their commitment to entrepreneurship. FG owed Brody big time.

In 2009, his O’Briens empire went into liquidation. Not that such ill fortune should disqualify him from sitting on the State’s food board. Luckily for him, FG came into power in March and gave him the break he needed at Bord Bia.

The reformist regime has appointed half a dozen judges. Most interesting was probably the news of the arrival on the bench of solicitor Patrick Durcan. The name rang a bell. Surely this could not be the genial Fine Gael senator with whom I served back in the Eighties?

The very man. Patrick from Mayo was an FG Taoiseach’s nominee to the Senate. He was a county councillor for 25 years, a running mate of the Taoiseach’s in Mayo, who now happens to have landed the undemanding — but well- paid — post of District Justice. Patronage has been good to Patrick.

Ask yourself would Patrick — whatever his merits — have ever been appointed by a Fianna Fail government ? Or would the current Government ever appoint Micheal Martin’s unelected running mate to a state board? Not in a lifetime. The spoils of war go to the winners.

The reason that I know so many of the new Government’s appointees is because they have political pedigrees. They mix in political circles. Twenty of the new regime’s appointments to state bodies have identifiable political links to the Government. Five of the six judges have similar connections. A lot of them have been as conspicuous for their political activities as for their business or judicial expertise. Indeed, Brody’s bad luck with his belly-up company should make his appointment at least open to challenge.

He need not fret. There will be no such challenges. He is safe. The Bord Bia quango is safe. Neither ordinary directors nor judges will go before Oireachtas comm-ittees for interview or ratification.

Before they came into government, Fine Gael and Labour promised an end to the old abuses. One-hundred-and-fifty quangos would be culled. Last week, the number came in at under 50. Independent appointments were promised.

Last Thursday, it became crystal clear that most of the quangos had been reprieved. The reformist regime’s appetite for appointing its own followers looked ominous only days after the election, when they cooked up a programme for government. Their love of independent appointments evaporated. They huffed and puffed about the disgraceful way Brian Cowen and his cohorts had stuffed state boards in Fianna Fail’s last days in office. The Taoiseach even sought legal advice on how to sack them. He received a negative reply.

Are we entitled to a whiff of scepticism? If Enda had been able to oust all the Fianna Fail loyalists who landed in board seats in the dying days of the last regime, he could have filled them with people of the “highest integrity” from Fine Gael and Labour.

The Coalition was temporarily thwarted, but is rapidly making up for lost ground.

It has not dumped its lip service to reform. About half of all government departments have advertised the Bernard Allen route, inviting ordinary members of the public to apply for the vacant board seats.

Sadly the reforms are cosmetic. While the public may apply, the minister makes the final decision. He or she can simply parachute any of their patsies into key positions, ignoring the public participation process altogether. Only chairmen need appear before Oireachtas committees where TDs will have no power to veto them. Indeed, a cynical minister could always suggest to a favourite with a nod and a wink that if he takes the ‘democratic’ road his name will emerge from the hat — on merit, of course. What convenient cover for a crony.

Old habits die hard. Cronyism has passed from one tribe to another. At least Fianna Fail was always been brazen about its naked patronage. It did not try to hide cronyism behind a veneer of democratic selection and bogus transparency.

Yet there is a fly in the ointment for the Fine Gael-Labour warriors. At the recent Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin, members of the diaspora volunteered themselves as a panel of entrepreneurs who would give their talents free of charge in the service of Ireland. They would willingly work pro bono as directors of semi-state companies. They would slot into suitable state boards, providing skillsets unmatched in Ireland. They would refresh sleepy monopolies like the DAA, An Post, CIE, the ESB and Bord na Mona. Overseas billionaires, achievers in such sectors as energy, aviation, postal services, transport and hi-tech companies, are now available in the interests of the nation.

Watch the Government flee, screaming, from this act of altruism. Now that Fine Gael and Labour have surrendered our economic sovereignty, they will cling like grim death to the one power they should surrender: patronage.

No wonder the quangos were reprieved last week. Fianna Fail must be proud of their opponents’ conversion to cronyism.