Blueshirts makes a mountain out of a debacle

Ah, the Blueshirts; unable to get out from under Croke Park they decide to go up Croagh Patrick instead — hoping that God will listen to them even if the unions will not.

A dozen or so Fine Gaelers were today set to burst out of the sumptuous Westport abode where they are holed up under high security for their parliamentary gathering to conquer the peak — though victims of drive-by disability cuts will no doubt hope the trek doubles as an act of atonement. Unfortunately, Enda Kenny was planning to remain on Planet Blueshirt — aka the luxurious Knockranny Hotel — and not venture out into the real world with his fellow FGers.

This is probably a mistake as the so-called think-in gathering has exposed Fine Gael as being in a decidedly “Two Nations” mindset. While the bitter recessionary winds continue to swirl outside, on Planet Blueshirt it is still all Riverdancing and Hungarian mud wraps as if the economic collapse never happened.

Indeed, closeted Kenny came dangerously close to a “let them eat cake” moment when asked about the looming property tax.

After it was pointed out to him that credit union research shows that many struggling families have barely €100 to spare at the end of every month as it is, Enda rounded on the questioner: “Well, you are in a hotel here that has had the best August it has had since it was set up. I see tentative signs of improving of the Irish economy in different areas, levels of stamp duty increasing, and so on.”

So, that’s OK then. Destitute families need not fear the future, just cobble their pennies together and book into one of the €250 a night rooms at the Knockranny to power the country out of the downturn.

Why, if they are really patriotic they could splash-out on a “signature spa treatment” of a “dry flotation mud wrap” for just €85, or something called a Lady In Waiting Massage — a snip at only €95.

But then Kenny was not having one of his most lucid days as he announced the wrong budget date and insisted people would be told the full horror of the property tax well in advance of that moment — before Michael Noonan gently corrected him on both matters.

Indeed, the finance minister seemed a bit dizzy at having to reinterpret the Taoiseach every five minutes and at one point, musing on the format of the budget, declared: “We might do a bit of Riverdance this year, shuffle the feet.”

However, he was less jolly in the closed session of parliamentarians — so secret that Fine Gael flunkies were posted along the corridors like sentries to stop any journalists eavesdropping.

But Blueshirts love to babble almost as much as they love €150 Turkish body scrubs. While one minister bitched that Ruairi Quinn’s fly-on-the-wall documentary for RTÉ exposed him as a “bad Abbey actor” another TD revealed Noonan tried to whip the new intake into shape, telling them they needed to toughen up as it was better to take the pain now and hope the “economic and political cycles coincided” later on, adding if he could “rewind his political career” that would be the idea he’d take back with him.

Considering the banners of the opposition protesters outside think the main governing party is called Fine Gale, maybe that mountain to re-election won’t be so hard to climb after all.