Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Michael Noonan was in fine fettle at the Association of European Journalists' lunch last week. He admitted it was hard to compete with largesse available to Charlie McCreevy, and complained that because the pair actually like one another, the option of "going for the man, not the ball, in the tradition of at least one Limerick rugby club" was denied him.

He did, however, muse on the value taxpayers were getting for their money, citing as an example the new prison in Dublin.

"Cloverhill has prison officers on overtime, for minding ghost prisoners - there are no prisoners. This is to help them familiarise themselves for when there will be prisoners," he explained.

"There is a category of trustee prisoner, and they brought some trustees down to familiarise them as well - they are kind of like teachers' assistants, prisoners you could trust - but two of them absconded. So it is the absolute Irish joke, that we have a prison that cost the taxpayers millions, which is not open yet, but already we have two escapes from it!"