Budget advice: do no harm

While €300 million won’t go far, it won’t do much damage either

Michael Noonan, Minister for Finance: a placebo budget may be his best option Picture: Fennells

It’s mid-September, and I suppose we really ought to start thinking about the budget. So where better to start than mid-September 20 years ago, and holidays in the Greek island of Kos. Back in those pre-refugee crisis days, it was just another fun-in-the-sun island; but, being Greek, it had a back story. It was the home of Hippocrates, the founding father of western medicine, whose first piece of advice to wannabe docs was: ...