Top 10 reasons for McCreevy to be cheerful

BUSINESS OPINION: The hangdog look on his face said it all. The Taoiseach may say that he loves the place and the man himself may claim he is happy to leave Merrion Street behind for Europe, but there is none of the trademark bravado about Brussels-bound Charlie McCreevy.

But he should not be too downcast and here are 10 reasons why.

1. He will not have to tax his beloved bloodstock industry. Mr McCreevy successfully long-fingered bringing this anomaly to an end in the 2003 Finance Bill, when stallion owners were ordered to return to the Revenue Commissioners details of their tax-exempt income from stallion stud fees. Mr McCreevy said this would have to be done for a few years before any decision could be taken on whether to start taxing them. He might have dodged the issue in Budget 2005, but he would have had to face up to it in Budget 2006.

2. He will not have to deal with the inflationary nightmare that will be the unwinding of SSIAs in 2006/2007. The flood of money that will be unleashed when this scheme ends may help win the next election but dealing with the consequences of this less-than-well-thought-out scheme will be a major headache for the Minister of the day.

Mr McCreevy, who introduced the scheme - which will cost taxpayers in the region of €2.5 billion - against the advice of the Department of Finance, will be able to watch with interest from Brussels.

3. He will not suffer the embarrassment of the eventual climb down on decentralisation. As the various Departments complete their assessments on the impact of moving down the country, it is becoming abundantly clear that this hare-brained scheme is a non-runner. It may have served to distract from a very mean Budget last December but failed to deliver the hoped-for electoral dividend in June. His successor will no doubt water down, if not dismantle entirely, this crazy plan.

4. He will not have to decide on Aer Rianta. When the unions made the issue of Aer Rianta a sticking point in the negotiation of the second round of Sustaining Progress, it was suddenly revealed that the Minister for Finance owned the company and not the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan. The fudge that was eventually cooked up required the Minster for Finance to sign off on the break-up of the company next year. Not the sort of mess that any sensible politician would want to get dragged into.

5. He will not have to decide on Aer Lingus. Ditto. No doubt the Minister for Finance is also the ultimate owner of the State airline which ICTU considers its private property.

6. He will not have to wind up the National Development Finance Agency. Another of Mr McCreevy's big ideas, the NDFA was unveiled in the run up to the last election and was supposed to go out and borrow billions, without recourse to the Exchequer, so we could finally get all those roads and schools built. It emerged pretty quickly after the elections that this was not actually possible and the NDFA has been reduced to some sort of in-house corporate finance arm of the National Treasury Management Agency.

7. He will not have to preside over benchmarking Mark Two. Mr McCreevy's embarrassment over the appalling waste of tax payers money that was benchmarking must have been acute. Just how acute we will never know given his decision to extend restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act to cover the benchmarking body that decided public servants needed an average 8.9 per cent pay rise, but refused to offer a shred of evidence to support their conclusion. Billions of euros have now been committed and if there has been any significant reform of the public service in return then it must also be being kept under wraps. But that has not stopped the Government agreeing to a new round of benchmarking.

8. He will not go through the agony of increasing spending in Budget 2005. Pressure is building in Fianna Fáil for a few crumbs to be thrown the way of the public in the next budget. And if the latest exchequer figures are anything to by, there will be a few euros to spare. By heading off to Brussels, Mr McCreevy avoids tarnishing his hardman image by giving into the demands of profligate colleagues.

9. He will not have to live in the State, which has the second-highest level of poverty in the developed world, according to the recent United Nations Human Development Report. Instead he will live in Belgium, which spends 5.8 per cent of GDP on education and 6.4 per cent of GDP on health. He leaves behind a country that currently spends 4.3 per cent of GDP on education and 4.9 per cent on health. Of the top 20 developed nations, only Japan and the US spend less on health and Luxembourg spends less on education.

10. He will not have to put up with The Irish Times.