I'm all in favour of Michael Noonan's proposal that people who wear hoodies should be banned from shopping centres.
He says it's because they wear them to escape detection by CCTV cameras while they're shoplifting, but I think it's fair to speculate that, like most right-thinking people, he knows that hooded tops just lower the tone. I commend him for coming out strongly on this crucial issue, which I'm sure he didn't just cog from Tony Blair. We need more politicians like Mr Noonan.
After the success of his anti-hoodie proposals, it appears that Mr Noonan has been moved to dream up more measures. I have it on good authority that, when it comes to Mr Noonan's future announcements, hoodies are just the tip of the sartorial iceberg. When the fuss about the banning of these abhorrent items of clothing has died down, my spies tell me, Mr Noonan will turn his attention to that other massive danger to consumers: the evil and not a little dangerous belly top.
By as early as next spring he is expected to call for the belly-top brigade to be banned from shopping centres because statistics show that they are more inclined to buy - and, it goes without saying, shoplift - clothes that are at least two sizes too small for them. There are concerns that this new policy might drive the belly-top trade underground, but he is certain that careful monitoring of backstreet boutiques should be enough to keep all those midriffs hidden forever from public view.
After that, jeans that expose underwear will be targeted. It wasn't easy, but he's managed to manufacture - sorry, dig up - research showing that people who wear the kind of jeans that offer the unedifying sight of strategically-hiked-up boxer shorts or thongs are statistically more likely to steal sweets - pink bonbons are particular targets, apparently - from the pick-'n'-mix sections of supermarkets. Get rid of the low-slung jeans and our sweets will be safe.
There will, of course, be a UEE - underwear-exposure exemption - for celebrities, such as Jordan and our own Samantha Mumba, who regularly atone for others' sweet stealing by spending a fortune on caviar-infused face creams.
His next idea is slightly more controversial. It proved almost impossible to raise statistics on the threat to society posed by people who wear white socks with black shoes. Still, after a thorough retail investigation by Mr Noonan himself, it turns out that such offenders tend to spend no more than a paltry €500 per shopping-centre visit. When one takes this startling fact into consideration, it simply doesn't make economic sense to let these types into our malls in the first place.
The same goes for young ladies who wear pink tracksuits with "Juicy" emblazoned across their bottoms. There can be no room for such vulgarity if our economy is to continue to boom.
Now that Mr Noonan has been thinking seriously about it, he has realised the possibilities are endless. There is no reason why targeting the style of shoppers shouldn't raise money for the Government. People wearing more than one item of Burberry at a time could be charged a trying-too-hard tax before they are allowed into Dundrum Town Centre.
All those carrying Louis Vuitton handbags - especially those desperate-looking white ones - could be questioned about their authenticity before entering Harvey Nichols and Brown Thomas. The owners of knock-off bags from Bangkok will be slapped with a how-sad-is-that? tax. Serve them right for faking it.
And why, he has begun thinking to himself, should he stop at clothes and bags? Those with bad general grooming could also be targeted. Surely the Garda could dig up some figures to show that young fellas with an unhealthy ratio of hair gel to hair pose serious terrorist threats. Ditto bad copies of Brian O'Driscoll's shaggy hairstyle, examples of which are appearing on teenage boys at an alarming rate. And it stands to reason that young girls with inexpertly applied tans and asymmetrical hairstyles should be made to pay.
On good days, my spies tell me, Mr Noonan allows himself to hope that his revolutionary proposals could bring him back into the political mainstream. Of course, being open and transparent about his new ideas will probably mean he'll have to ditch the shiny tracksuit he wears at the supermarket, but then political life is one long sacrifice. He, a former leader of Fine Gael, even took a custard pie in the face for the party during the election of 2002. It has been a few years, but that woman's pastry attack still rankles. It's no coincidence that she was wearing a hoodie.