The two Brians spoke with no bells or whistles - and the one word they didn't use was 'cuts' , writes MIRIAM LORD
GOOD MORNING, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard Brianair - Ireland's new no-frills government.
This is your captain speaking. My name is Brian, and with me is my co-pilot, Brian.
There's a saving already on the printing costs.
Tighten your belts and keep them fastened until we have turned off the warning signs, something which is not going to happen for the foreseeable future. We only noticed the warning signs ourselves in the last couple of weeks, even though we've been flying this baby for more years than we care to remember.
Do not expect a soft landing. Those days are gone.
In a moment, members of our cabin crew will be passing among you with details of our redesigned in-flight service.
It'll cost you . . .
The conference room in Government Buildings was packed yesterday for the launch of Brianair. Taoiseach Cowen and Minister for Finance Lenihan had called a press conference to announce details of their new passenger charter, which is based on revised fare structures and cost-saving measures. They would be ushering in a new brand of low-cost government, "managing" the "transition" from the high-flying Aer Bertie years to a value-for-money model.
Fittingly, the event began with a cattle-crush of correspondents in a holding area inside the gates. They were confined in the glass hut until a signal was given that the Taoiseach and his Minister were ready to commence, whereupon there was an unseemly gallop across the courtyard.
Not a sign of a cup of tea. A biscuit was out of the question.
Inside, there were just two nameplates at the top table. It looked rather mean. Cowen and Lenihan, the founding fathers of Brianair, entered and sat behind them. There was nothing fancy about the backdrop - just a muted image of Government Buildings. The plasma screens had no fancy graphics, just two words: "Government Briefing".
At Brianair, what you see is what you get.
No formalities either. The Taoiseach spoke first. He got straight to the point: "While we must not overstate the difficulties, equally we must not understate the necessity for decisive action. We must act responsibly to secure the long-term future of our economy and our people, and I am determined to do just that."
It was a brief statement, without bells and whistles. Challenges to be managed, value for money to be achieved, efficiency to be improved.
Brian C stressed he would be decisive. "There is no disguising the fact that these are difficult circumstances. They require difficult decisions." He may have been vague about how precisely the savings that must be made will be made, but he was decisively vague.
There wasn't any applause when he finished his brief contribution - at Brianair, there is only applause for safe landings. Yesterday, the Government was only at the stage of submitting a provisional flight-plan.
As co-pilot, Brian L did most of the work. If we do not act now, the financial situation facing us for 2009 will be more difficult and the action needed more urgent," he said, emphasising that he would not be steering the country along the path of large-scale borrowing.
However, in an effort to calm nervous flyers, he said the Government was prepared to lead from the front and to share the pain of the turbulence that lies ahead. They will not be accepting their ministerial pay increases.
Over the next 18 months, Brianair intends to shave €1.5 billion off the public sector pay bill. In another part of the building, the social partners, who are setting off on the long-haul trip of negotiating a new national pay agreement, watched the press conference on television.
However, they will have taken note of the Taoiseach's words: "It is incumbent on all of us to make the compromises necessary to ensure that Ireland emerges undamaged from the difficult global environment we are now in."
To a man and a woman, that meant one word: cuts.
But that was the one word that wasn't used by the Brianstrust at any stage yesterday. They didn't say it once, neither in Government Buildings, nor when the action moved to the Dáil chamber. Opposition leaders were in a huff that the two Brians announced their public spending measures at a press conference, rather than to the Dáil.
Enda Kenny found it insulting. But that's Brianair for you. He should be happy he wasn't charged for using the plinth earlier in the day to "unveil" his party's latest acquisition - an Independent councillor from Dublin called Derek Keating has declared for Fine Gael.
That kept Enda happy for the morning. But his encounter with Brianair left him frustrated and angry by Leaders' Questions in the afternoon.
What they were proposing lacked vision, he said. The plan to implement savings was "full of vague generalities". The announcement of an across the board 3 per cent cut in the public service wages bill exercised both the Fine Gael and Labour leaders. How did they propose to achieve this? Where was the detail? Would it mean an increase in local authority charges?
Taoiseach Cowen said the measure would yield €250 million over the next 18 months. It was the "first phase" in an exercise to devise a budgetary strategy.
Which means a lot more "savings" have to be made to achieve the overall target of €1.5 of billion.
"It doesn't add up" said Gilmore, dismissing Brianair's new model for going forward as "a bit of a back-of-the-envelope book-keeping exercise".
The ministerial pay cuts and slashing the budget for PR advice and consultants was nothing more than a "headline grabber", continued a mightily unimpressed Gilmore, demanding more detail.
At this point, the Taoiseach deployed his cabin crew. He said his Ministers will be working the Dáil aisles today to outline what measures they intend to take.
Already contemplating their wage freeze, the Ministers looked less than delighted by the prospect. But that's Brianair for you - the new no-frills government. The champagne days of Aer Bertie are but a vapour trail in the sky.