Howlin has his day but policies of pain remain the same

WITH the economy sinking faster than the Titanic, it was grimly fitting Brendan Howlin should deliver an iceberg budget — with its huge dollop of nastiness lurking deep below the chilly surface.

Mr Howlin, who demanded his day doling out the bad news to make sure Labour looks like less like guests in government and more like partners, did not dirty his hands with the details during his 33-minute misery speech.

Cuts to the disabled, child benefit, rent supplement and pensioners in fuel poverty — indeed, just about everyone Labour promised to protect — were rapidly glossed over.

If Joan Burton was happy her social protection budget had “only” been slashed by half a billion euro rather than the €820 million floated at one stage, her downcast face did not betray it.

And though Ms Burton did enough to safeguard funding levels to stop her being burned on the stake of public opinion as the Wicked Witch of Welfare, her status within Labour ranks as St Joan is now gone forever.

Ensuring pensioners and the very poorest in society will be colder for an extra six weeks of the year without the warm glow of means-tested heating benefits seemed particularly brutal — but no more so than the attack on disabled people.

But then maybe ministers calculated they do not need to worry too much about poverty in the Real World as they face such a poverty of opposition in the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming almost brought the House down with laughter after he attacked the Government for indulging its rich pals — as if it wasn’t his party that actually invented the crony culture that led us to this disaster.

Fianna Fáil is the prisoner of its own history, constantly looking back and trying to justify its record which means it always ends-up endorsing the broad policies it claims the Government has stolen from it — but such an attitude just guarantees FF will never get traction with the electorate when the Coalition’s popularity plunges as it inevitably must.

Sinn Féin could be poised to suck up that discontent, but not while its spokesperson Mary Lou McDonald can clearly not even be bothered to listen to Mr Howlin’s speech.

Where was the charge for private beds in public hospitals and the switch to cheaper generic medicines, she demanded? Erm, they were in the budget speech — were you asleep?

The strongest intervention came from Stephen Donnelly, but as he is an independent, there is only so much he can do to hold the Government to account.

While Ms Burton had nothing to smile about, Health Minister James Reilly looked as if he’d been slapped silly around the Cabinet table all week.

He was the big loser of the pre-budget battles and clearly knew it.

But then the way the traditional Government lie machine was cranked up ahead of the budget was meant to leave us feeling relieved the assault on spending was not more severe. But as a Greek communist MP said about her country’s choice regarding its bailout terms: “We can decide between getting killed or being murdered.”

A few Fine Gael TDs went through the motions of applause as Mr Howlin sat down, but the effort was as pathetic as it was short-lived and not a single Labour deputy bothered to join in.

And due to the power-play between Mr Howlin and Finance Minister Michael Noonan we get the other part of the package today, so the Government can at least say it has increased something in this budget — the pain goes on for twice as long.

But in the end, post-IMF Irish democracy comes down to one thing: You can vote for whoever you want — but the policies stay the same.