Smooth Noonan outshone Howlin and stole the show
Like Waitey Katie before him, Labour’s Brendan Howlin dreamed of being centre of attention, with Noonan trailing in his wake — but things did not turn out like that.
The Finance Minister delivered a far subtler, nuanced and emotionally intelligent Dáil performance than Howlin had managed and, as with the Middleton sisters, there were bound to be unflattering comparisons after Labour insisted on splitting the budget across two days in a desperate bid to get equal billing in an uneven Coalition.
