Some years ago, at the height of the boom, I was at a barbecue in the former Stasi stronghold of Wandlitz, where those loyal to the East German Secret police were rewarded with plush villas, whilst everyone else was sitting in small flats with mullet hairdos. During what turned out to be an extremely drunken night, a German fellow asked me a question that to this day sends a shiver down my spine: ‘What did you do with our money?’ I regaled him with tales of the Luas, the BertieBowl™, of decentralisation and other, apocryphal tales of state wastefulness.
Now that our state’s tax take has a hole about the size of a small country, that’s a question I’m redirecting to Leinster House. What did you do with our money, Brian?
Well, all good things come to an end, but if the last eleven years are like anything, then it’s like the three night bender on the heel of payday. You think you’re amazingly wealthy, so let’s go nuts. Afterwards, you go to your ATM because you need to get a burger and a cure, only to have the scary green words “insufficient funds” flash in your face, taunting you, ‘cos the homeless guy tugging at your trouser leg has more savings in his paper cup than you have in your current account.
Maeve Higgins has the best analogy for our current problems, of the child who spent all their pocket money in one shop. Well, there won’t be any more pocket money until they've earned it. I think Brian Cowen’s pay, and that of his hench-people, should be withheld, until the mess we're in is cleared up. God knows what Mary Coughlan will do for a new pair of slingback Manolos. Knowing how things are, and how long it’ll take to fix things, the next time you’re at the hole in the wall, the guy who’s tugging at your trouser leg will probably be Brian Lenihan.
