Colm McCarthy was laid-back, but serving up his menu to a queasy public is going to strain Ministers' stomachs, writes MIRIAM LORD.
AFTER YEARS of high living, our political leaders arrived at the Café From Hell yesterday and were forced to confront a menu of the most foul and indigestible choices.
The Taoiseach and his Ministers will have recoiled from the bill of fare, but they also know that if they don’t order and dispatch an ample sufficiency, the consequences for them and the rest of the country could be catastrophic.
There’ll be no Sniptoeing through the tulips for Brian and the gang after the steaming mess of cuts that Colm McCarthy served up to their sophisticated noses.
What’s worse, when they’ve properly perused what’s on offer, they’ll have to dish out McCarthy’s recommendations to an already queasy public.
Will the Government have the stomach to do it? Brian Lenihan – the man who has to send out the plates – appealed for calm after the full list of possible sickeners was disclosed to the media at a private lunchtime sitting in the Department of Finance.
There were no politicians at this briefing; they were probably off stocking up on the Imodium. Only the man who devised the recipes and a number of departmental officials were there.
In keeping with the austere tone of the occasion, the meeting took place in an unlit room where the two pieces of art on the walls depicted a stormy landscape and an assemblage of torn bits of paper.
Colm McCarthy took his audience through the long list of options, designed to shave a potential €5.3 billion off the public service bill. His work is nearly done; he’s put together a package in accordance with the dietary requirements submitted by his Government employers. All that was left for him to do was to explain the components of each dish, and why he chose them.
It’s strong stuff.
But the laid-back and straight- talking McCarthy – a man who clearly takes pride in what he does – was happy to answer all the questions and explain the method behind his work.
He tells it as it is. Take it or leave it. Refreshingly awful.
Never mind the Government. A nation waited apprehensively to discover the outcome of his labours. But here’s an interesting thing – Colm McCarthy is not prepared to send anything out before he has dipped in himself and licked a finger.
The man behind the eye-popping menu from “An Bord Snip Nua” has worked long and hard for months on the project. With his team, they held 52 meetings between January and July, on 45 separate days, not to mention the work in between. These people are highly paid and sought-after experts.
What did they cost us? The total damage, bar some additional courier costs this month, came to just under €38,400.
In Bertie Ahern’s time, a consultant wouldn’t have left the golf course to consider writing a report for that sort of money.
The figures outlined by McCarthy were stark. “I just don’t think there is another alternative other than to push ahead with the fiscal consolidation we have commenced,” he said, in coded language meaning it’s full steam ahead for the slash and burn.
For social welfare recipients and public servants in particular, the conclusions, in the celebrated words of that same Bertie, “are enough to send cold spines up and down your back”. The gory details can be ingested in glorious technicolour in other parts of this newspaper today. But one of the more astonishing aspects of the collection of cuts McCarthy has pinpointed in the public sector is the fact that he could identify so many. Exotic quangos garnishing buffets of quangos, all set up by the people who are now paralysed at the thought of trying to dismantle them.
Their grannies would have told them a snip in time saves nine. But would they listen? Look at them now, and the streets are sure to be heaving with protesters as a result.
McCarthy doesn’t have much time for the Seanad – €25 million to keep them going every year. He’s a bit tepid on TDs too, but hamstrung by the Constitution. As for Cabinet Ministers? Fifteen is probably the right number, but “some of them are run off their feet and for some of them . . .” he paused and smiled. “Eh, it’s not so demanding.”
Judges should do away with their stick-banging, book-fetching tipstaffs and use law interns to help them out. That’ll please the Mrs Judges, as they obsess about starry-eyed young wans, some might even be called Monica, assisting their learned husbands on a daily basis.
Ministerial pensions earned by serving TDs don’t do much for Colm either. “The accelerated accrual arrangements are very expensive,” he remarked.
There are many very worrying suggestions relating to children, carers, pensioners, medical card holders – the list goes on.
But McCarthy put everything on the menu. It’s not his job to choose – that’s up to the Government. But he built in plenty of wriggle room for them, holding out a scenario where they can at least argue that they are sparing the most vulnerable from the worst of the carnage.
“You were involved in this process 20 years ago, how does it compare with this one?” he was asked, bringing to mind the TV clip from last week of a British news channel doing an item rating the funeral of Princess Diana against the funeral of Michael Jackson.
Back in Leinster House, the furniture has been disappearing over the last few days. Wolfe Tone’s bust is missing. So is the Grandfather clock in the hall. It looks like the bailiffs have been in.
Times are hard indeed. And the Opposition is mindful of this. They came out on to the plinth to give early verdicts on the report.
First Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton – The Great Brutini – did a delicate high-wire manoeuvre (while balancing a curate’s egg on his head) between welcoming the harsh measures which must be taken and citing the shocking implications for the less privileged in society.
Labour’s Eamon Gilmore – The Mighty Eamo – also managed a fine balancing act, lambasting the Government for setting up most of the agencies that are costing so much while welcoming many measures suggested in the report.
But he strongly opposed a lot of the recommendations. The report had a feel of “This is Ireland viewed from the snug of Doheny and Nesbitt’s.”
Doheny’s is the hostelry of choice of economists of Colm McCarthy’s ilk.
It’s going be a long summer.
Service complete, McCarthy turned off the gas and declared he wanted to go off and watch some hurling matches, leaving the politicians behind in the Café from Hell to deliberate, cogitate, digest and decide.
They’ll hate every minute.