The moment has finally arrived with the delivery of the Bord Snip report when the three biggest questions facing Ireland have to be answered;

1. Do we protect the most or least vulnerable from the butchers bill? Is it to be cuts in disability and old age pensions or cuts in excessive public pay awards?
2. Where does power reside in our democracy, is it at The Oireachtas or is it behind it in the unelected hands of powerful lobbies like union chiefs?
3. What kind of moral fibre does this Cabinet really have? Will they match the rhetoric of serving Ireland first or will self preservation and fear overwhelm them?

What do you think? They’ll be taking three months holiers in the next few days and you can whistle Dixie for the publication on the Bord Snip report until after The Lisbon Treaty vote – the Government don’t trust the world’s most sophisticated electorate from differentiating between continuing effective European Union membership and the pain of spending cuts.

Meanwhile with the publication of two key reports dealing with the security of oil supplies and what happens in the event of oil shortages, you can rest easy that we’re in informed hands at the Department of Communications Energy and Natural Resources. There’s no problem with world oil supplies. That’s official. In the multitude of risks assessed by the Government covering everything from labour disputes at our ports to terrorist attacks, there’s not a word about the game changing audit of world oil reserves undertaken by the IEA (International Energy Agency) of which we’re a member. Now just to remind you of what the IEA has found;

• Just to offset the decline rate in oil production from aging fields we need to discover four new Saudi Arabia’s over the next twenty years and six if demand growth is to be matched. (By the way no giant fields have been found since the 1960’s, since 1984 production has exceeded discovery and since 2005 there has been zero growth in crude oil production – all that’s increased are by-products of maturing oil fields like butane and propane)
• The decline rate is 6.7% per year, nearly double previous estimates.
• Even allowing for the goldilocks scenario of huge investment in new oil infrastructure and burning up massive amounts of gas to heat Canadian oil sands to release more oil, we’re still facing an immediate oil crunch for at least the next five years.

But these things don’t bother our boys. All of the risks they've assessed are temporary little disruptions in supply, nothing permanent so you can sleep easy knowing that they’ve figured out what to do;

• Garda enforced reduced speed limits. Alternative driving days for private cars. Restrictions in petrol supplies at stations. A ban on containers or cans and home or business storage facilities.
• Reduced supplies to airlines. Imposition of maximum sales to any one customer. Reductions in supplies to commercial customers. Designated pump islands for emergency services and priority personnel.
• Lots of TV and radio ads to remind us of the fines and imprisonment for up to ten years for breaching the new rules under the Fuel Acts 1971 and 1982.

Yep, they’ve thought of everything and included in the list of key personnel to get priority at designated petrol pumps? All members of The Oireachtas, including over their three months hols. Go one admit it, don’t ya just want to cuddle one right now!