Treading harshly on the poor, old, and vulnerable

MICHAEL Noonan boasted he was “handing Ireland her purse back” — but not before letting Brendan Howlin riffle through it to snatch what cash young mothers and old ladies had left in it.

The austerity double act of bad cop and even worse cop was keen to spin the budget as squeaky clean, but in reality it was a sneaky, mean effort that did not even spare the dead.

Quoting WB Yeats, Mr Noonan tried to present himself as the angel of austerity, fighting off demands to bring in harsher measures from the demons of Fine Gael by using the line: “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”