“AW COME ON, man. Not again.”

Anyone who remembers the breathless coverage of the Lehmann Brothers collapse that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis and the many spin-off crises that followed will have had the same reaction to US President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcements this week. You already got us! It was supposed to be one recession per lifetime, two at a push. That was the deal! 

On the bright side, there is some small sense of nostalgia in watching the photos of finance bros on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange looking with horror at the screens above their heads as if witnessing some kind of eldritch abomination. Really takes you back to the late noughties. Siri, play Lisztomania by Phoenix. 

So what do the tariffs mean for you? This column really isn’t the place for that kind of analysis. Partially because we don’t have the time, partially because I’ve forgotten most of what I learned during two years of undergrad economics, but mostly because the tariffs don’t make a lick of sense.

For example, Trump’s anti-trade measures include a 10% tariff on Heard Island and McDonald Islands. It’s a territory administered by Australia that is uninhabited by human beings. But those penguins will be paying through the nose to import American goods from now on, let me tell you.

If there’s any saving grace for Irish people worried about this bleak economic forecast, it’s that many of us already feel as though austerity never really went away in the first place. Oh, heading for economic hardship are we? Tighten our belts, should we? Living beyond our means, is it? For anyone who lived through the 1980s, this would be recession number four. 

So yes, things are probably about to get worse, but if it makes you feel any better, things are already rubbish and you’ve made it this far. 

The economic chaos that now threatens to engulf the planet has the potential to make our own domestic concerns feel a bit parochial, and yet these local issues will continue to impact us day-by-day. Like this whole business with the Molly Malone statue.

It was reported this week that Dublin City Council is planning to hire stewards to police behaviour at the Molly Malone statue, whose bronze bosom is often touched by visitors, to the point that the statue’s chest area has become discoloured. The news was reported by RTÉ on April Fool’s Day, leading many on social media to assume its falsity, and anyone who didn’t get the memo as to its veracity will be stunned the next time they make a sudden motion towards the statue only to be tackled by half a dozen security guards. 

Molly Malone holds an especially sentimental place in Dublin folklore. Her story makes for the ideal Irish ballad, in the sense that the first verse is about the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen and the next verse is about how she died of tuberculosis. 

Busker Tilly Cripwell has been leading the ‘Leave Molly mAlone’ campaign since launching it last year, and she has said the proposals by DCC mark “a small victory amongst what feels like a lot of losses for women worldwide”. Tour companies have also said they will discourage visitors from climbing on the plinth, which seems like something they should have already been discouraging, but better late than never.

The hiring process is set to begin in May, just in time for the heaving throngs of tourists that will no doubt descend upon the statue this summer like the zombies trying to break into Will Smith’s basement at the end of I Am Legend. Hiring stewards (who will only be in place on a temporary basis) doesn’t seem like the perfect solution, but it probably would be more costly in the short-term to shell out for an even higher plinth emblazoned with the words: “Hands off, you pervert”.

Last year the city deployed stewards to stop people from mooning the portal to New York. Whether the same approach will work as well to protect Molly Malone remains to be seen. If this strategy also fails, it will be interesting to see what comes next. Snipers on top of St Andrew’s Church, possibly. Or security like the 6’6″ SWAT team behemoths who patrol the Luas in stab-proof vests looking like they’re about to raid a compound in Abbottabad. 

In all seriousness, it is appropriate that Dublin City Council is taking these concerns seriously. Those who grope the statue may not necessarily have malicious intentions, but the practice is gauche, even by the most generous interpretation. In this day and age, to allow the widespread practice of randos disrespecting what is one of the city’s best known landmarks in an overtly sexual manner does not send a good message. 

While there are those, especially online, who will argue that the groping of the statue isn’t a big deal, it seems that a positive step forward could be made if DCC also took an educational approach, and perhaps put together a campaign about why fondling the Molly Malone statue is not cool behaviour.

Netflix’s miniseries Adolescence has rightly forced consent back to the top of the public consciousness in recent weeks, and against that backdrop it seems that the treatment of the Molly Malone statue could be seized upon as a teachable moment. An ambitious government – whether at the local or national level – could perhaps sense an opportunity to educate the public, whether tourists or locals, as to why this kind of behaviour has become something of a stain on the city.

But it has been a week for speculative solutions, perhaps none more so than Barry Heneghan’s cunning switching seats so he’s no longer sat next to Michael Lowry in the Dáil chamber. The 26-year-old’s secondary school approach towards public perception is another story worthy of April Fools week, and if Heneghan thinks by switching seats that voters will forget that one of his first public appearances as a TD was to defend Lowry on national television, he is probably mistaken. 

And at least the Molly Malone’s future bodyguards will have a clear mission. What’s less clear is the role of the ‘housing czar’ that Micheál Martin teased this week. Speaking on Friday the Taoiseach said: ”We’re setting up the strategic housing office within the Department of Housing and a person has been identified and obviously the minister will announce that very, very shortly.”

First of all, great news that we’re getting another czar, you simply can’t have enough czars. Why stop there, why not throw a baron into the mix?

Second of all, don’t we already kind of know what the problem is with housing in Ireland? Haven’t there been books written on the subject? Isn’t that what the Minister of Housing is already for? 

Are we sure that need a whole new guy who, let’s be honest, we’re all already mentally picturing as a Mr Monopolyesque figure, going door to door, slapping his belly and collecting rent and mortgage repayments in a big sack?

As ever, there is little to feel optimistic about when looking to the economic horizon. But sure look, even if we all end up out of a job, we know of someone who’s hiring in May, and we can all do our duty as Irish people. Standing with our arms linked around the statue of Molly Malone.