This duo making monkeys out of us on troika’s behalf
Ireland’s myopic news loop, of mass unemployment, paedophile priests and James Reilly going about his job with the finesse of an angry bear rollerskating on ice, remains the same.
The only headline to induce surprise amidst the depressing norm in the past four weeks was: ‘Yorkshire Housewife Raised By Monkeys In Jungle’ — but even this proved to deliver less than it offered, as said monkeys did not actually teach the woman involved to be a worker within the home in northern England, but, rather, that is what became of her after she left their care.
But what is to become of us, after we leave the care of the money monkeys of the IMF-ECB-EU troika?
That was the issue exercising ministers as the Trio of Doom completed marking the maths homework of Michael Noonan this week — inducing fits of self-satisfied delight in the finance supremo, who beamed with pride as he told us he had passed all the tests of what he called the review “mission”.
And that was an interesting choice of phrase, as the boys from Brussels clearly view us in the same condescending way 19th century missionaries viewed the ‘native’ peoples they took it upon themselves to save and enlighten — and no one could argue that Ireland is not prostrate and helpless in the, er, missionary position.
Little Brendan Howlin tried to talk big during a joint press conference with Mr Noonan — the troika missionaries, of course, do not see fit to speak to the natives; we are just told what to do, not told why.
But it was Mission: Implausible as the two ministers adopted the condescending tones of their colonial masters from Brussels, and insisted their failure to secure a bank-debt deal would have minor impact on Ireland’s ability to exit the bail-out strait-jacket next year.
Yeah, right.
When the Irish Examiner pressed Howlin on details, such as what the forecast for the massive overspend on health — standing at €374m — would be by January, we received the rather underwhelming response: “The expenditure target is the expenditure target, and we won’t know until the end of the year where that is.”
Which, roughly translated, means: “I don’t have a clue,” and is the most fatuous piece of crap to emerge from a Cabinet mouth since Enda Kenny’s near-legendary: “Generally, when people speak to each other they use words.”
And, isn’t it funny that the further Mr Kenny travels from home, the more popular he becomes?
After making it to the cover of a regional edition of Time magazine, the Taoiseach has now been named by German prize-givers as ‘European of the year’ — though, surely, that should be ‘Austerity yes-man of the year’?
Berlin has also thrown Mr Kenny the crumbs of naming Ireland a “special case” — which is clearly the polite German way of saying ‘basket case’.
Back at the press conference of self-delusion, Noonan was blabbering-on about how we did not need to worry our little heads about the billions being poured down the toilet of bank debt, as this problem of the blank promissory note cheques, issued to cowboy capitalists by the last government, would all be sorted out by some unexplained special magic pixie dust he might, or might not, sprinkle on it in the future.
Noonan’s mesmerisingly monotone voice jarred even more than usual, as he kept referring to what he called the “prom note”, which sounded a bit like he was talking about a looming ‘prom night’.
But, rather than images of happy graduation celebrations as Ireland leaves behind the shackles of institutionalised life and makes its own way in the world — without a debt write-down on the €64bn Irish taxpayers shelled out to keep the banks in business — that prom night will be more reminiscent of the bloodbath unleashed at the high school dance by Carrie when she found things were not going as she hoped after all.
And, away from the big screen, parallels with the story of the so-called “monkey housewife” — whose actual name is the rather less exotic Marina Chapman — can also be made.
As a child, Ms Chapman says she was abandoned in an inhospitable Columbian jungle by inept, money-hungry kidnappers (or, in Ireland’s case, Fianna Fáil).
She was, apparently, then taken in, and cared for, by a group of capuchin monkeys (the troika), who taught her how to “catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands” (the equivalent of most families scraping by on just €100 a month after bills).
After being rescued by hunters, Ms Chapman claims she then went into domestic service and ended up in the urban jungle of Bradford, west Yorkshire, where she met a bacteriologist at a church meeting and promptly married him.
But will Ireland have a similarly happy ending?
Like the good puritans they are, the troika say in their mission review that spending on alcohol and tobacco have gone down during the financial collapse, producing pleasing health benefits.
And this sort of bright side-thinking must surely come as some comfort to parents worried about having to send their sons and daughters to bed hungry — what a great way to tackle childhood obesity.
Which brings us to a rather odd aside: in a Rolling Stone interview, Barack Obama mused that children did not like Mitt Romney because they had an innate capability to spot “bullshitters”.
Sitting in the smug news/self-love conference with Howlin and Noonan, one could not help thinking the US president’s observation could easily apply there also.
Supposing we eventually get rid of the troika — we will still be left with the same ruling political class.
As the American satirist George Carlin said: “Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
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