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?).