Crack aplenty in the Department of Finance

WELL, it would certainly explain where all the money went — the Department of Finance on crack.

Of course, Independent TD Shane Ross was being deliberately provocative with his assertion that Michael Noonan’s merry minions were free-basing the cocaine derivative as they dreamed up the latest growth forecasts in a drug-fuelled daze — safe in the knowledge that Dáil privilege protected him from any threat of a group defamation action.

“One must ask whether these guys are number-crunching on crack at the moment,” the pin-striped pontificator with a puncheon for pomposity mused (and note that one of the men at the centre of last year’s “Miss Piggy-gate” believes that only “guys” are allowed to do important things like look at figures — presumably the Finance Department “ladies” are only good for making the sandwiches and polishing the glass crack pipes, Shane?).

Enda looked a bit bewildered by the whole outburst during leader’s questions. No doubt the Taoiseach was thinking: “And exactly what’s wrong with a bit of the auld craic when you’ve got the calculator out? Why, me and Fionnuala often tot-up the cost of all the tax pledges I’ve broken tapping our toes to a nice bit of hardcore Foster and Allen.”

But, supposing Rosser is right? The Urban Dictionary’s definition of the effects of crack does strangely mirror Ireland’s recent boom and bust cycle.

It states: “The initial short-lived euphoria of crack will be followed by a deep crash.” And we certainly got that crash, rather than the “soft landing” the department’s “experts” predicted.

Chillingly, the description continues: “In heavy users, stereotyped compulsive and repetitive patterns of behaviour may occur.” And it just so happens this Government is compulsively repeating the last Fianna Fiasco government’s mantra that talk of a new IMF bailout is “ludicrous”.

The definition adds: “Tactile hallucinations of insects crawling underneath the skin may occur.” Could this be a reference to our nervousness as we await the verdict of the Mahon corruption probe and watch the banker- developer-political class that got us hooked on this junk scarper away scott-free?

The analysis concludes: “Severe depressive conditions may follow including a down- regulation of dopamine D2 receptors to compensate for their drug-induced overstimulation.”

D2? Is that not the very district of glitzy downtown Dublin where the unregulated NAMA-nuzzled plutocrats still guzzle champers as they laugh, literally, at the taxpayers’ expense?

But if Ross is right, we will soon know about it because no one has a higher opinion of Our Shane than he does of himself.

Just take that “Miss Piggy” incident when he chipped-in that the woman TD under attack, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, was “nothing sensational” — like he himself was some kind of cross between Micheal Fassbender and George Clooney.

While the Finance Department may or may not be on crack, Shane is addicted to another drug altogether — publicity. He craves attention, main-lining microphone airtime and hoovering-up headlines wherever he can find them.

Yet, as with most addicts, he is to be pitied rather than condemned.

Don’t worry Shane, as Whitney “crack is whack” Houston herself might say: “It’s not right, but it’s OK.”