Fionnán Sheahan

That didn't get through.

We have to keep an eye on the fiscal prudence side of things.

We can't just be throwing money out there.

That didn't get through either.

So it does seem that the government has got a messaging problem in terms of talking to the people and actually explaining its own strategy if there is such a strategy.

And no timeline on that.

If the protest hadn't happened last week, when might that process have come to a conclusion?

John, it's a hard sell really telling people that the country has been hit by a crisis.

We've raked some money so we could give it to you, but we don't want to because, you know, we want to we want to be seen to be managing the economy responsibly.

We've had COVID-19 packages rolled out, billions literally overnight.

Likewise with cost of living as a result of inflation.

Is this just another example of people expecting, look, the government is going to help you out here when times are tough and they have the cash in the bank.

So why aren't they doing it?

There is an expectation that whatever happens, something must be done.

The something must be done department, a very dangerous place in politics and in life generally.

Certainly the largesse the country is currently experiencing is fragile and finite.

We do have to be very careful and you have to ask yourself, what if these protests and entanglements happened, take for example, the mid-1980s when there wasn't a screw in the country?

What would have happened then?

And it is very easy.

We saw how quickly things can change in 2008 to 2010 when the economy just fell asunder.