Rehn-deers of doom and the nightmare budget before Christmas

VISITORS from the Arctic Circle usually stir great anticipation and excitement at this time of year, but the sudden arrival of Finnish EU Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn and his Rehn-deers of doom brought with it little but dread as he oversaw Ireland’s four-year kill-or-cure austerity plan which we prayed would not leave the economy dead.

Indeed, his lightning strike trip felt like the Finn end of the wedge...

’TWAS the nightmare Budget before Christmas, when all through Leinster House, not a Cabinet creature was stirring, not even a Fianna Fáil backbench mouse.

Stockings had been hung on the gates with great care by the old, the cold and those thrown on the dole – in hope that a national recovery plan would soon be put there.

The ministers were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plum expenses danced in their heads.

Mary Harney with her health axe and Brian Cowen his threadbare thinking cap, had just settled down for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, they sprang from their beds to see what was the matter.

When, what to their wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and Olli Rehn trying to control eight tiny Irish rehn-deer.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.

“Now Anglo, now Bail-out, now Banker now Vixen, On, Emergency! On Pension cut! on Blunder! and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away any hope at all!”

So up to Leinster House-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of cutbacks, broken promises and the EU’s very own Bad Santa Olli too.

And then, in a twinkling, they heard on the roof, the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As the startled Cabinet was turning around, down the chimney Olli came with a bound.

He was dressed all in Finnish fur, from his head to his foot, but his clothes were all tarnished with pork ashes and soot.

A tattered bundle of policies he had flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler just holding together his horsehair sack.

His eyes – how they twinkled! His dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled Cowen’s dying administration like a wreath.

The Taoiseach had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

A wink of his eye and a bow of his head, he always let the toxic bankers know they had nothing to dread.

Cowen spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and plundered the taxpayers’ stockings, then turned with a jerk.

For there, laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney Olli rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

Nothing but pain in the recovery plan, no sprinkle of hope, the Cabinet giggled, putting it together at Farmleigh had been one big joke – intended to cover the EU’s orders like a cloak.

The bond yields were spreading, the pensioners fretting, while economic sovereignty buckled and the casino money markets just chuckled.

And as Bad Santa Olli exploded into the sky, they heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight, “Happy Recession to all, and to all a goodnight!”