Sinn Féin President and chief economic pundit Gerry Adams has pledged to reverse austerity measures in the Republic of Ireland’s budget, just as soon as someone explains very carefully and slowly what the measures actually mean.
Speaking in his newly adopted constituency in Louth, Mr Adams described his fear that without significant effort by republicans, cuts affecting ‘people earning less than 80%’ could result in ‘cuts all across that’. He further intimated his concerns that if Fine Gael have their way, ‘there could be benefits of less than €18 across the board’, and other outrages of that sort.
The former West Belfast MP, who has bravely taken on the role of explaining the economic crisis to the people in order to undo some of the damage perpetrated by bankers, Fianna Fáil and the Brits, has arranged a series of closed briefing meetings with the Central Bank, economists from the IMF and an eleven year old school child. The Central Bank and IMF will explain the various cuts to the eleven year old child, who will explain to Sinn Féin representatives with the aid of a sand pit, some pies and lego bricks, how the economy works.
Adams recently objected during a private presentation by the Department of Finance of the economic turmoil by demanding that a pie chart of national income be simply drawn larger, in order to facilitate a spending increase.
Previous attempts to illuminate the murky world of economic theory for members of Ireland’s dourth largest political party have failed. In 2009, during a training exercise for Sinn Féin representatives, participants apparently overcame the problem of a theoretical allocation of finite resources to infinite wants by robbing a number of post offices.
