Class act from the Money Minister

TEACH your children well. Leave the next generation in the capable hands of Professor Charlie McCreevy.

The Minister for Finance revealed yet another string to his talented bow by holding a masterclass for the youth of Fianna Fáil on subjects as diverse as mathematics, planning, rural development, education and sociology.

Yet it was the philosophy tutorial that stood out as he explained the complex rationale behind his proposal to push ahead with decentralisation and to hell with begrudgers who say it cannot and should not be done.

In life, in Ógra Fianna Fáil, in sport, there was always a reason not to do something and someone saying you shouldn’t do it, he said.

“Ah sure, if we all think like that we’ll do shag all. So we’re going to upset a few civil servants and a few headline writers. I say ‘So be it’,” he said directly.

The adoring audience, 100 or so members of Ógra Fianna Fáil and a few young-at-heart old FF members as well, put the minister to the test, though, on a few probing issues of concern to the less mature of the nation, including EU enlargement, the economy, tax breaks for GAA players, insurance and, curiously, pensions.

Responding to the fees question with a run-down on spending on third-level and ruling out the return of fees in the lifetime of this Government, Prof McCreevy said he didn’t mind academics being vocal on their funding, as he’s always been a big believer in freedom of expression, and the press as well.

“I’m an old-fashioned 60s liberal,” he declared to the amazement of the crowd.

Shocking all and sundry, the Minister for Money went on to confess about his own reckless youth.

“That freedom let fellahs like me go off and organise marches and go mad,” he said.