Last October, Michael McGrath delivered the first budget by a Fianna Fail minister for finance since the late Brian Lenihan in December 2010. The economic contrast could not have been greater. McGrath ended his speech by declaring that Ireland had full employment, a growing economy, budget surpluses, a national debt that is falling, a population that is rising and, according to him, a plan to secure the future.
Lenihan also had a plan to secure the future but for him, things were much grimmer. The troika was in town, the country was in the vice-like grip of Arctic temperatures and he had unveiled €6 billion of cutbacks in the most draconian budget in the history of the state.
This was just a year after he