Anyone hear the porky about the funny money that screwed us all?

“FUNNY money”, “screwed” and “porkies” — oh, how the campaign’s buzz words have encapsulated the great battle of competing ideas that is the enlightenment of political discourse.

Or maybe not.

You’ve just got to laugh at Brian Lenihan — after all, the financial markets always did. It takes some nerve to complain with a straight face about Fine Gael’s “funny money” economic policies when you’re the man who did so much to make Ireland a standing joke around the world. But then everyone is saying anything they can to stop the elected dictatorship of Enda Kenny beginning in seven days’ time.

Eamon Gilmore used alarmist — not to mention alarming — imagery to warn Enda intended to “screw” the country. Can’t imagine that sort of language going down very well with the strong christian socialist element in the Labour Party.

But then Labour’s rampant attacks on one-party government could backfire badly as the squabbling may put voters off the idea of a coalition and make them see the experiment of a majority Fine Gael government as the least worst option in order to secure longed-for stability.

The Labour onslaught will also produce a transfer backlash with many hard-core Fine Gaelers now unlikely to give their second preferences to Labour’s candidates.

And, ironically, the only man more keen to see Labour scramble into government other than that party’s own leader is Micheál Martin.

Better to have Gilmore as a prime target in a fractious left/right coalition cabinet than be overshadowed by the Labour chief as leader of the opposition, with FF consigned to the margins as another minor party battling with Sinn Féin for attention.

But despite Mr Martin’s best efforts to convince everyone he was held hostage in cabinet for the past 14 years and would have done everything so differently if he had not been hypnotised by the cult of Bertie and Brian, the voters are just not buying it.

They see FF as Ireland’s very own Bunga Bunga Party. Embattled Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi can deny his legendary “Bunga Bunga” parties were orgies all he likes.

But FF cannot get away from the fact it presided over orgies of a very different kind — outpourings of financial hedonism where anything was allowed to go on as long as you were in the permissive golden circles being indulged.

However, Fianna Fáil is almost certain to undergo one of its chameleon-like metamorphosis in opposition and swing solidly to the left, knowing that like the Martians in The War Of The Worlds, its tentacles are buried deep beneath the surface of Ireland and Mr Martian’s now bedraggled and bewildered army may yet rise again.

But whether toppling Tánaiste Mary Coughlan will be among them remains to be seen.

She made a rare re-appearance in public as Mr Martin was forced to insist he had not been hiding her out of sight in the distant wilds of the North West.

A defensive looking Ms Coughlan denied being anxious she would not make it onto the Fianna Fáil front bench after the election. But in reality she need not fret too much, should she manage to cling on in Donegal South West, she is a front runner for a shadow ministerial post — simply because there are 15 such positions available, and some polls suggest Mr Martin will not even secure enough TDs to fill them all.

However, polls are deceptive and there is likely to be a large swathe of voters now too ashamed to say they will vote FF, or who have neutralised the act in their mind, by saying they are backing the constituency candidate they know rather than the party they tell pollsters they wish they had never known.

Campaign fatigue seemed to get the better of Mr Martin as he launched into his bizarre “Chinese accent” like some lost-in-time, boorish, 1970’s stand-up comedian, and then announced: “I haven’t had a biscuit in over 20 years,” without ever explaining what the nature of the horrific ginger nut-related incident which so drastically altered his life in 1991 was.

Can the nation really be expected to trust a man who has not had a biscuit in 20 years?

And in similarly strange vein, Gerry Adams decided to say it — or rather, not say it — with flowers.

The Sinn Féin chief may have used the novel ploy of getting down on one knee and presenting a woman reporter with a white rose on Valentine’s night to avoid answering her question about his previous campaign gaffes (she wasa bit miffed about how the usually ultra-PC Mr Adams would have treated a male reporter in similar circumstances), but Sinn Féin are on the up, poised to snatch a number of targeted seats and fulfil the breakthrough denied them in 2007 due to major defections in Dublin which left them a largely hollowed-out entity at the time.

The United Left Alliance has also gelled better than expected and looks set for at least a couple of seats. But then what kind of impact can any opposition make in a Dáil with an in-built FG/Labour two-thirds majority?

Mr Adams has shown an unexpected talent for jaw-dropping political analogies, after comparing the universal social charge to an “act of gross terrorism” without the merest hint of self-awareness, he finished the week dispensing dietary tips which included the gem: “The whiter the bread, the quicker you’re dead.”

Mr Adams also made two extraordinary denials this week — insisting he had never been a member of the IRA, and he had never eaten a packet of crisps in his life.

Surely, one of those statements is a blatant lie — everyone has eaten a packet of crisps.

Just another of those “porkies” that has come to dominate the campaign, no doubt.

Picture: Election cards for Kevin O’Keeffe at the ready at Cork Marts in Fermoy, Co Cork.