Devil in detail on not-so-perfect day

Facing more music.

In the Dáil, Budget 2014 reminded Mick Wallace of Lou Reed. “Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor huddled masses, and I’ll piss on them.”

On RTÉ One, Brendan Keenan brought no satisfaction either for the people with a few bob.

“The 41% DIRT rate reminds me of Harold Wilson when I was a young man and when the Rolling Stones had to leave Britain.”

But it wasn’t a budget that would drive George Hook into exile on Main Street. “Maybe it’s because I’m a fat, bald old pensioner with no kids in school, but I don’t see where the pain is.”

The consensus, across the airwaves yesterday evening, was that the devil, in Budget 2014, was to be found in the detail.

If George had us scouring the fine print, without success, for hikes in shampoo and salad prices; some of his fellow pensioners weren’t as sanguine.

Philip Boucher-Hayes arrived in the Radio One studios armed with a red pen to highlight the “banana skins and grenades” the Government may need to dodge in the coming days and forecast a “whirlwind on the old-age pension telephone allowance,” a measure he described as “particularly harsh and nasty”.

Back on TV, John Mark McCafferty of St Vincent de Paul (SvP) had a more measured weather warning: “Cloudy with some points of silver lining… the cut to the benefit for a fourth child is a big concern.”

In truth, outrage was muted. Or at least the recession in colourfully expressed outrage continues to bite — one of the hidden costs of the years of pain; a drastic inhibition in ability to give out entertainingly.

With Vat staying put, Michael Vaughan of the Irish Hotels Federation was the second happiest man in the country after George. “A great day for tourism. This Government gets tourism.”

“Politically, this looks like quite a clever budget,” concluded Shane Coleman on Newstalk.

“A scattergun approach,” said economist Jim Power. “The political approach is divide and conquer.”

Coleman figured the big hit in the polls might come only when the best planners among us vote with their fertility calendars.

“The cut in the maternity benefit — a lot of people who it will affect mightn’t even know now they will have a baby next year.”

Pat Wall of PricewaterhouseCoopers felt some of this initial uncertainty was down, in part, to a difficulty in assembling a clear picture of this fresh hole forming in your pocket.

“You can’t do the classic calculation. There are too many moving parts. And that’s deliberate. The Government has been broadening the tax base.”

But Michael Taft of Unite wasn’t painting such a masterpiece. “Budgets are like an impressionist painting. We all have our nose pressed up against it and all we can see are the dots. Let’s step back and look at the broader canvas. The rate of decrease in unemployment is slowing down.”

On Today FM, businesswoman Glenna Lynch was joining some of those dots.

“A low-blow, messy budget. Quite a lot of sneaky things. For a young person under 25, a family, an elderly person; there’s a lot of impact.

“The big elephant in the room; nothing to allow people to have more money in their pockets, to generate domestic demand.”

Economics lecturer Stephen Kinsella was sure his students would be dismayed by the inevitability of relying on reduced dole.

“It feels like the Government is trying to use carrots and sticks to move people into training or to leave to manipulate employment statistics.”

But when most finished with the detail, they tended to grab one particular devil by the tail. We have become familiar with many new and gloomy words in recent times. ‘Probity’ has been there or thereabouts among them, but yesterday it was writ large in many conversations.

Certainly the suggestion that “medical card probity” will raise €113m worried SvP’s McCafferty.

“That is causing us great concern. And creating a level of uncertainty for many of the people we are assisting.”

Any certainties at all? Matt Cooper found Michael Noonan content to hang in there with George. “The last budget with the troika in place. You are an old-age pensioner yourself? Will it be your last budget?

“As long as the Taoiseach wants me to stay in the position, I’ll stay in the position.”

What was the next line of that Lou Reed number?

“Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death.”

Just don’t expect a bereavement grant.