Cabinet goes on holidays as crisis worsens

With inflation rising across the country and further hikes in gas, oil, wheat, barley, milk, parking costs for civil servants and package holidays to Greece and Portugal expected, the Cabinet is refusing to end its annual summer holiday early.

'The summer holiday is a long-standing tradition,' said Noel Dempsey as he closed his clinic in Castlejordan.

But the State has all the appearance of falling apart. Real estate is plummeting in Dublin. If this disastrous meltdown is not halted, house prices are expected to become affordable again by autumn 2009.

Angry mobs gathered outside an empty Oireachtas yesterday to protest against the end of the Celtic Tiger. Their slogans fell on deaf ears, their placards invisible to Government Ministers, who were holidaying insouciantly with their families in Lake Garda and the Maldives.

The public tried to contact several Departments, but the phones rang out, presumably for want of people to answer them. Yet another sign of straitened times and savage budget cuts.

Eating out, soon to be a symbol of by-gone days, has become unsustainable, with restauranteurs now asking €45.00 for commoner garden dishes like fillet of John Dory and braised suckling pig, while simple vegetarian dishes like celeriac and truffle lasagne is a whopping €32.00.

‘The Government is committed to maintaining high levels of employment and a strong business sector,’ said Taoiseach Brian Cowen as he officially opened a social welfare local office in Tullamore last week. Code, no doubt, for ‘the worst is yet to come.’