Do you want a general election now?

I think there were lots of civil servants and legal experts on both sides. The Irish government didn't do much direct negotiation.

The way its gone I'm not sure previous relationships with the UK made much difference or are you saying the whole northern ireland protocol issue would be even worse now because British Irish relations are not exactly at anything close to a high.

Whoever voted for anyone they didn't think could benefit them be it because of the individual or the party they represent.

For example historically it was said FF was good for the small farmers and FG for the big farmers.

It doesn't matter whether it was true or not but there probably wasn't many small farmers voting FG or many big ones FF if they believed it to be true.

National debt has indeed exceeded €240 billion (last figure I heard from the. NTMA) €40 billion of which was on Covid measures.

Thanks to the careful targetting of that funding, to keep jobs open and businesses alive, as well as the highly effective public health measures, the economy and indeed the society has remained strongly resilient and activity has bounced back beyond all predicted metrics.

As for the debt, yes the number is high, but thanks to the huge growth, not just in GDP, but in mGNI reflecting domestic activity, the national debt is fast reducing as a percentage of the size of the economy and thats the main takeaway.

I hear there on the news that Bernard Durkan (FG) has Covid and was refused a pairing arrangement by (childish) Sinn Féin. So really, tonight's vote should have been 86 to 66, just for the record.

See you for the election in Feb 2025.

No,

it costs millions to run a general election.

the likelihood is the same two parties will end up back in government.

So that’s a rather expensive tab for the taxpayers to be picking up, just to get the same FF/FG set up.

Who's kicking anything down the road?

The Exchequer's ability to bear increased borrowing and service it more cheaply and more effectively is greater than it ever has been, thanks to the expanding economy and increasing population.

Ireland's problem in the past was pro-cyclical fiscal policy. And although inflationary risks need careful minding, the best thing the Government can do now, in this time of global slowdown and challenging conditions, is invest.

You're taking meaning from my post that I haven't said.

All Countries, bar a few oil sheikhdoms, borrow. It is the tool that balances peaks and troughs in the economy. It is the financing for infrastructure and strategic investment.

We have the FAC and the NTMA and the ESRI and the Central Bank and the Euro Central Bank and the IMF and the European Commission and the OECD, all keeping a watching brief on borrowing policy and there have been very few reservations expressed across the whole pandemic and war/energy crisis about the Government approach.

A lot of what was added to the Government debt isn't just sovereign borrowing, its interest free stimulus from the EU €750 billion fund, the first created on the EU's own sovereign assets.

We are in a massively fortunate position to be able this flexibility to see us out of the difficult decade ahead by targetted investment, in people and services.

As An Tánaiste said earlier, Sinn Féin don't seem to realise that there is a cake and that their policies will make the cake smaller for everyone and bring the prosperity that the Nation does enjoy, to a crashing halt.

When the economy is booming, you take money out. When the economy is in serious headwinds (which as one of the most open in the World, ours is) you spend, spend, spend baby.

The clever bit is knowing when to be doing one and not the other, which I wouldn't trust SF to know in a million years.