FINANCE MINISTER MICHAEL Noonan has said he will never appear on a programme being hosted by Vincent Browne because he doesn’t like him.
Noonan has declined to give reasons for his dislike of the veteran presenter of the Tonight programme on TV3 in an interview with the Limerick Leader newspaper.
The Fine Gael TD is running for re-election in Limerick City next year and sat down with the paper’s editor Alan English to discuss the last four years, his political comeback and his future plans.
But it was Browne that got him particularly spiky after English raised The People’s Debate and Noonan’s refusal to appear on the programme when it came to Limerick recently.
Noonan said: “Vincent criticised me, but Vincent knew I wouldn’t go on his programme. I don’t like Vincent Browne and I don’t go on his programmes and I won’t go on his programmes.”
Asked to explain why, Noonan said he didn’t want to explain, adding: “I just don’t like the fella.”
I’m not going to get into that in any way whatsoever. But I mean, he comes up here, into Limerick, and he launches an attack on me for no good reason. Vincent would have known four years ago that I wouldn’t appear on his programme.
He added: “The position is that Vincent Browne could be running a programme all night from the Statue of Liberty and Michael Noonan will not go on.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Noonan said he was working on the assumption that the government will be returned to office and poured cold water on a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil alliance.
“You’d be handing the country over to a Sinn Féin-led government, second time out. You’re teeing up a different model to what we’ve had since 1922,” he said.
I won’t be around for that one, obviously. But you’re teeing up a left-right model and I think Sinn Féin don’t pass the economic literacy test.
“Their experience in Northern Ireland is helping to run a public service and social welfare economy. I don’t think they have any idea how to run a private sector economy.”
He said he would like a country where the alternative to Fine Gael-led governments are Fianna Fáil-led governments.
The 72-year-old told the paper that he wants to be Finance Minister if the government is re-elected, saying he’d “more or less sorted out” the country after five Budgets.
“I’m after five budgets now and it’s for the public to judge, but from my perspective the country is more or less sorted out again now,” he said.
“The job now is to keep the recovery going – so I would like to spend another couple of years to make sure the recovery continues to go forward.”
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