It’s the return of delusion rather than recovery

Every silver lining, they say, has a cloud. Or is it the other way round? The new year has certainly got off to a bang in terms of the nascent Irish recovery.

In the last week we saw three developments which on the face of it seem to be proof positive that we have moved forward — turned the corner to face green shoots — and so forth.

The NTMA succeeded in getting away a bond issue, so did Bank of Ireland, and Michael Noonan was voted best finance minister in Europe. While all three are nicer than stories about the impoverished of south Dublin resorting to hunting and eating rats with wings, none of them actually amount to much more than the return of delusion.