U-turn on allowances - Have they the stomach for the fight?

It must be assumed, unfortunately, that Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin is in the debilitating grip of an advanced case of political Stockholm Syndrome.

This psychological condition arises when hostages express empathy with their kidnappers and, in extreme cases, defend them.

How else could anyone explain how a minister, who otherwise seems articulate, decent and genuinely committed to social progress, turns a promise to save a moderate €75m from the €1.5bn — just 5% — paid as allowances to public employees into a more or less irrelevant saving of just €3.5m?