Hi all – The room is filling up and they have just tested the microphones. It means the statement by Finance Minister Michael Noonan won’t start quite on time… but it will be soon.

We wonder if that’s a metaphor for Ireland’s economic recovery.

Minister Michael Noonan is making a short introductory statement.

This won’t be the last budgetary announcement until Budget 2012.

Brendan Howlin is absent because he’s opening a hospital wing in Wexford. He agrees with everything Noonan’s about to say though, says Noonan.

The main thing the Government is prioritising is getting people back to work, says Noonan.

There is definitely a clear plan in their budgetary plans.

A return to economic growth and to high consumer confidence levels are tops too – but we need balance between that and getting the deficit down; between taxation and expenditure.

Noonan is saying that the Government is on track in stabilising public finances and on the road to growth.

But he understands that citizens are feeling the pain. And the European situation is “a challenge” right now.

There is still a large gap between Government expenditure and income. It HAS to be closed or we will experience a continuing loss of sovereignty. At this, Noonan invokes the bogie man of Greece. That country is looking forward to at least 10 more years in a programme. It’s vital to close our debt-GDP ratio to get back into the markets.

€12.4bn is the overall adjustment we must make to 2014.

€3.8bn adjustment in first year (Budget 2012)

€4.65bn will be found on the tax side.

The forecast for growth this year has been increased to 1 per cent – but this is coming from exports mostly.

Now, the growth is expected to be revised downwards for the start of next year but it is expected to average out at 2.8 per cent over 2013, 2014, 2015.

Questions for Noonan now:

The GDP target has always been €8.6bn he says and that is “sacrosant”. To reach it, we have to increase the adjustment of the Budget by €200m to €3.8bn this year…

How are you going to achieve such savings without touching income tax?

“We regard it as possible,” says Noonan. He sees that much will come from expenditure. He says he will be looking for €1bn in tax increases in the Budget but that he already has €600m carrying over from last year.

So what increased taxes?

Property charges;

€100 charge on the eligible housing stock (worth about €160m);

carbon charges

Noonan now being asked about minimising cuts for frontline services.

“Obviously there will be cuts,” says Noonan. He claims they never claimed there wouldn’t be during the election campaign. If you follow.

But he says they will attempt to do it in a “fair and equitable manner” and not target the vulnerable.

Are we going to have a mini-Budget next year if they got the growth rate wrong for next year (he said earlier they are marking it down by 1 per cent)?

Noonan says that the situation is changing constantly and it is volatile so he can’t be firm on everything.

On capital expenditure, he says capital cuts are “front-loaded” because there is no point in going ahead with capital projects if you’re going to cut the legs off them halfway through.

Essentially, there will be cuts to capital projects – but he’s going to give departmental ministers “the pleasure” of announcing those themselves. Cue laughter. But are Goverment ministers watching in and laughing too?

“We are actively pursuing alternative financing arrangements” for Anglo, says Noonan, by the way…

The Government is committed to the Jobs Initiative and is committed to the pensions levy. The VAT reduction is going to stay so we can get the tourism industry going again (and that, frankly, is where the monies raised by the pensions levy is going).

Noonan is using an anecdote about some friend of his not able to get a fourball on a golf course in Ballybunion in September. This indicates that the Americans are back on our golf courses big-style, in Noonan’s mind. This is the kind of recovery he hopes to see in other sectors of the tourist industry.

Noonan clarifying where his €3.8bn adjustment for Budget 2012 is coming from – expenditure cuts will bring €2.2bn; tax increases will bring €1.6bn (but again, that €600m carried over from last year counts in that figure).

Michael Noonan asked if he really expects the Irish people to take €12.4bn more of austerity over the next four years.

He feels we will. He doesn’t want to say anything too critical about European economics but he wants to point out that Greece’s image has been a bit of a caricature, and that they have really taken the pain. The problem they have is one of social cohesion and a political one, he says. He is pointing out that the opposition in the Greek parliament has been a real pain to the Greek government and not at all helpful.

He says the centre-right opposition in Greece got the country into trouble and are not helpful to the socialist government of the moment. Which is something, considering Noonan says he himself is centre-right. Is that George Papandreou we can hear cheering in the background?

In case you were wondering, these cuts are real, says Noonan. We’re not making light of it but we are asking people to bear with us because we have a clear plan to get the country out of this mess.

He doesn’t want anyone on 7 December to say: This is very unfair.

We can say: This is a very tough Budget.

But we can’t say: This is very unfair.

He won’t go into details on what services will be cut.

Harry McGee of the Irish Times is causing Noonan a bit of hilarity. Noonan accuses him of being a bit excited by having a Galway president when McGee (who is from Salthill) asks if Noonan has not done a U-turn from his opposition days against austerity.

There was cross-party agreement, says Noonan, even before the election and we made it very clear to the troika that if we got in, we would stick to the targets in the plan.

Noonan is wondering who was expecting “a bright new dawn”. Everyone – no matter in opposition or in power – was aware there would be austerity and cuts.

“The main thrust of policy was made crystal clear” right through the election campaign.

Noonan is saying we might have a case for being compensated for “carrying” a crisis in European banking. He says shareholders took the first hit, subordinate bondholders took another hit, and the Irish and European taxpayer also.

This compensation would not be a restructure or default but another way perhaps of bringing our debt burden down.

They are looking at a common policy paper on what is feasible.

He says he had some ideas – like offering AIB equity to the Europeans in return for taking some money off our debt. He says the Government have been negotiating – that’s how we got 3 per cent on one fund and 2.6 per cent on another.

The Anglo bond of this week. Wondered how long it would be before that came up.

He didn’t like it but it had to be done.

Imagine if we hadn’t paid it and the whole Greek thing had blown up. Noonan says we would have been the “patsies” who caused the whole mess and then where would we be?

That’s it for now as the Q&A ends – all very civilised from within the small press briefing centre in the Department of the Taoiseach.

Outside the room is another reality. @travors in our comments section below wasn’t as amused as the press corps at Noonan’s golfing anecdote. He says:

Noonan using a golfing anecdote as an indication how the economic situation is improving just shows how completely out of touch he is with reality. I’ve been working myself to death all month, and after bills I won’t even have enough left in my paycheck for a solitary golfball.

We hear you, sir.

It seems that golfing anecdote might come back to haunt Michael Noonan. One of our Twitter followers, @Canning_Laura, also picks up on it:

We rather like this brief but to the point blog post which economics lecturer Stephen Kinsella has just posted.

Using a rail gauge metaphor (better than a golfing one, we suppose), he is noting that the Government is falling somewhere between the two stools of “front-loading of pain” and sticking their head in the sand.

We’ll leave it there folks. To read the whole Medium-Term Fiscal Statement for yourself, we have uploaded it HERE.

We know we should be focusing on €12bn+ in austerity but we can’t help but think of Governmental types playing golf since Michael Noonan’s earlier Ballybunion anecdote.

We can’t find one of him swinging a club but for your viewing pleasure…

Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the Irish Open Pro Am in July (Pic: Nick Potts/PA Wire)

Alan Shatter gets wife Carol to do the driving at the FG 2010 think-in (Pic: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

You’re very welcome.

See you at the next fiscal briefing…