Government fails to get the real message across

THE proposal (subsequently retracted) to tax the most humble of mobile holiday homes on the same level as five to six-bedroom “palaces” built with “easy” loans demonstrates in the most blatant way, if that were still necessary, that the Government learnt absolutely nothing from last autumn’s medical card debacle.

To a seasoned “ward orderly” like me (who has served some of the most competent spindoctors in the business), what was genuinely frightening about that own goal in the autumn was that nobody in or near cabinet foresaw the negative impact.

This was compounded by the botched backdown which sent the fatal message that the budget could be written in the streets.