The Eighty-Five Billion Euro Man

by Donal Conaty

  ‘Ajai,’ he said, gripping the boss by both shoulders. ‘It's good of you to come in our hour of need. We are like yourselves now – a third world country.’

  Ajai removed Dermot's hands from his shoulders and stepped back slightly.

  ‘If you are referring to India, Mr Mulhearn, I would respectfully suggest that its finances are in much better shape than yours.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Dermot, smiling broadly.

  I would get used to him saying ‘indeed’ every time he wanted to end a conversation.

  We walked on plush carpeting through halls hung with portraits of former finance ministers. From the antique lamps on the desks to the polished Georgian door handles, everything suggested grandeur and high office. Eventually, Dermot showed us to a room with a few free desks. ‘This is your base,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves at home.’ Then Dermot and Ajai went for a private meeting while we got settled in. As I was arranging my calculators on my new desk, I noticed a pensioner lady standing in the doorway.

  ‘Have any of you lads seen my nephew?’ she asked.

  ‘Your nephew?’ I said, puzzled – it seemed a strange question. ‘Are you sure you are in the right place? This is the Department of Finance.’

  ‘Of course it is, you silly goose,’ she said. ‘He's the Minister for Finance. You must be new here, are you?’

  ‘Just arrived this morning Ma'am,’ I said.

  ‘Don't call me Ma'am,’ she retorted, seemingly pointlessly. ‘Oh I know, you must be one of the IMF lads. I suppose you've met Dermot, have you? You poor boy. Now where is my nephew? I have to bring him shopping for a suit, or he'll never be leader.’

  ‘I saw him about twenty minutes ago. He was reading a newspaper when we came in.’

  ‘A newspaper? Oh, God save us! He'll have taken that to the toilet with him. He could be gone for hours,’ she said as she left.

  I spent the rest of the day drilling down through figures provided by Dermot's colleagues. I noticed that the Department of Finance seemed to have spent extraordinary sums on financial consultants, with one in particular drawing six-figure sums every month. I resolved to get to the bottom of it with Dermot the next day.

  Back at the hotel later that evening, we had a debriefing session with Ajai. He decided that he would handle the politicians and other stakeholders for the following few days. I was given the task of negotiating with Dermot, and the rest of the team were to do due diligence on the figures.

  Ajai asked me what I thought of our first day in Ireland.

  ‘I have to say the Irish negotiators have been very generous. They won't let us put our hands in our pockets for anything. Coffee, lunch, you name it,’ I said.

  ‘That's what I'm afraid of,’ Ajai said in his usual serious tone. ‘They do love to spend money, but they will be spending our money now.’

  We turned in early; the flight had taken it out of us. I'll tell you something for nothing – it is great to be working in a developed country for a change. They have a far better quality of mattress in their hotels.

  I had a marvellous sleep and was outside the Department of Finance at 6 a.m., reporting for duty. I was still outside at 7, 8 and 9 a.m. Eventually a security guard let me in at 9.45 a.m., after I offered him €20. He insisted he wasn't supposed to let anyone in before 10 a.m. As soon as Dermot arrived, which was shortly before lunch, I asked him about the financial consultancy that was earning a packet from the Department according to the accounts.

  ‘Which one?’ Dermot asked.

  ‘Mystic Meg Ltd,’ I read from my notes.

  Dermot flew into an impressive rage, his skin turning from its normal orange colour to a blood-red and then a threatening purple. ‘That bloody woman,’ he said blackly. ‘She is responsible for all our bad luck.’

  ‘Please explain,’ I said. ‘How could that be possible?’

  He said he'd fill me in over lunch.

  ‘Oh, Minister,’ he shouted suddenly. The Finance Minister had put his head around the door.

  ‘Did you want me, Dermot?’ he asked with great diffidence. ‘I want you to book me a table for two at l'Ecrivain. And you're not one of the two so don't be getting all excited, Minister,’ said Dermot.

  We were shown to Dermot's usual table in l'Ecrivain. He seemed to be very well known there. I asked for the set menu but Dermot wouldn't hear of it. ‘Let the Irish Government buy you this,’ he said. ‘It's not often we get one of our Wild Geese back.’

  I asked him again about Mystic Meg and he shook his head sadly.

  ‘She ruined us,’ he lamented. ‘She promised there'd be continued growth and a soft landing. She never prepared us for any of this.’

  ‘Well, a lot of economists thought that,’ I said.

  ‘Economists?’ he spat the word out. ‘Who listens to economists?’

  Dermot excused himself to go to the bathroom. Talking about Mystic Meg made him feel sick, he said. Oddly enough he still had an appetite for a foie gras starter and lobster main course.

  On his return I asked him what Mystic Meg's credentials were. He put his head in his hands.

  ‘She was very impressive at first,’ he said. ‘She told my sister she would meet a handsome stranger, and she was spot on. She even introduced them come to think of it.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. I couldn't hide my confusion. ‘What exactly has she done for the Department of Finance?’

  ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘She's been entirely responsible for economic policy since 2002. Do we have to talk about her? I'm bored.’

  I was almost speechless.

  ‘So what was your job?’ I asked him.

  ‘My job?’ he said. ‘My job was to phone her, of course.’

  My wild Wicklow venison was going cold as I stared at this man in disbelief. I could not think of anything to say. Could we really train him to take charge of the Irish economy? While I gathered my thoughts, we were interrupted by several officials from other government departments asking Dermot for rugby tickets. He seemed to have any number of tickets and perked up while he exchanged banter with them about the forthcoming match. When they left, Dermot was first to break the silence.

  ‘We thought about suing her,’ he said, ‘but she strongly advised us against it.’

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘Oh, I don't know,’ he said. ‘I guess I was hoping you'd sort everything out. We could always try phoning Irish Psychics Live. But I'm not sure they're real psychics.’

  Two hours into the longest lunch I've ever eaten, Dermot started crying into his Calvados Age Inconnu.

  ‘Please, please don't,’ he sobbed, grabbing my hands across the table.

  ‘Don't what?’ I asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

  ‘Please don't give our money to the Portuguese. They have the sun,’ he said. ‘We have nothing.’

  I tried to explain to him that that is not how an IMF bailout works, but he was inconsolable as he ordered another Calvados.

  Ajai raised his eyebrows when I came back to the office after the three-hour lunch break. He summoned me over for a private word at the water cooler.

  ‘We will be having intense negotiations through the weekend,’ he said. ‘Where's the Irish negotiator?’

  ‘Apparently he is not in the habit of coming back to the office after lunch on a Friday,’ I told him nervously.

  Ajai pursed his lips; somewhere a president wept.

  ‘How are we supposed to negotiate the Irish bailout without the Irish?’ he asked, reasonably enough.

  ‘To be honest, Mr Chopra, I don't think the Irish are that interested in the negotiations. Dermot was going home to get ready for something called the Toy Show on television. He was very excited about it.’

  Ajai rubbed his temples; somewhere a finance minister had an anxiety attack.

  ‘Right, we'll wait till tomorrow,’ he said with an exhausted sigh. ‘But if the Irish guys don't show up, you're going to have to negotiate for them.’

  I asked Aja
i how he had got on with the unions.

  ‘They just wanted pens with IMF written on them,’ he said. ‘When we ran out of pens, they lost interest in us and started fighting amongst themselves.’

  That evening I shared a sandwich with Ajai in the hotel lobby before we retired for the night. We split the bill between us. Ajai went to bed but I was restless and decided to go for a short walk before bed. Quite near the hotel I came across an impressive monument to Wolfe Tone and I was hit by a sudden nostalgic memory of the stories my dad told me when I was growing up in Jersey about Irish rebel heroes. What would they make of this situation? I walked back to the hotel and turned in for the night.

  I woke in the middle of the night to the unsettling sensation that there was someone in my hotel bedroom. And there was. A skinny guy wearing a Christmas jumper was sitting on the end of my bed talking animatedly to Dermot. Who was he? Why were they here? And why on earth was he wearing a Christmas jumper in November?

  ‘What? Who? How did you get in here?’ I asked.

  ‘With the key, of course,’ Dermot replied with effortless, inebriated charm. ‘We were just on our way to La Cave and were wondering if you would care to join us. How did the old negotiations go anyway? Are we all good? Done and dusted?’

  ‘You weren't there,’ I said. ‘Ajai postponed them until tomorrow. We can't negotiate with someone who isn't there. It's not how we do things.’

  Dermot was clearly put out by this.

  ‘You're after embarrassing me in front of Ryan,’ he said.

  ‘Hello Ryan,’ I said weakly. ‘Welcome to my hotel room.’

  Whoever he was, he clearly thought I meant it. The two of them raided the mini-bar and stayed for hours. I had a soda water. I fell asleep listening to the skinny guy going on and on and on about JFK. Another dead Irish hero.

  When I woke they were gone and so were my shirts. Damn. I had only met Dermot and I was already exasperated with him. It was like dealing with a disruptive child. They had obviously been amused by the idea of leaving me with just a Shrek goodie bag and an Irish soccer jersey. I tried the jersey on and looked, grim-faced, at my reflection in the mirror. I had to go in and face Ajai on a crucial day for the negotiations wearing an Irish soccer jersey that was three sizes too big for me. I'd rather be waterboarded.

  Ajai said nothing when he saw me. We were only in the country a couple of days, but already the most unlikely situations seemed commonplace to him. He reached into his desk drawer and handed me a fresh white shirt. ‘Give it back pressed,’ he instructed. ‘Buy shirts at lunchtime; add them to the bottom line.’

  Just as I got up to go, he called me back. ‘While you're out, pick up some t-shirts with I ♥ IMF printed on them. Make sure they're XXL. They might be useful during negotiations.’

  Dermot was in sparkling form that morning when he led his team into the historic negotiations with us. I have to say he cut an impressive figure in a bespoke three-piece suit, and he certainly didn't look like a man who had been up all night. However, he and his colleagues found it hard to settle into serious discussions. They appeared to be distracted by something.

  ‘This won't take long, will it?’ Dermot asked. ‘Only we have an important march to go on.’

  ‘Surely you don't mean the march against the Government and the IMF,’ said Ajai, shocked.

  ‘Why not?’ said Dermot. ‘Aren't we all in this together? On the one road sharing the one road and all that.’

  Ajai was incredulous.

  ‘But ... you … are ... the ... Government.’ He said each word slowly and deliberately, hoping they would somehow penetrate Dermot's consciousness.

  Dermot looked at him with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Are we?’ he said, ‘Or are you? And does anyone really care?’ he asked, clearly feeling that the question was rhetorical. He looked at his watch. ‘Must go,’ he said. ‘The march is starting at midday. We can't let the people down. They look to us for leadership. We have to show a bit of solidarity.’

  After Dermot left, I tried to persuade Ajai that we could actually get some real work done while the Irish negotiators marched against their Government, but he was concerned about the optics.

  ‘We can't sell this deal if people think the Irish didn't even enter negotiations,’ he said. ‘We're going to have to play it their way.’

  I didn't know what he was going to say next, but I knew I wouldn't like it.

  ‘The Irish negotiators like you,’ he said to me. ‘You have to help them negotiate a deal they can stick to. It needs to be something they can sell to their people. There's no point, otherwise.’

  My heart sank.

  ‘I want you to go after them and join them on the march,’ Ajai said. ‘And wear this.’ He threw me the Irish soccer jersey.

  Dermot was as happy as a kid in a candy store when I caught up with them. He threw his arm around me. ‘You're one of us now,’ he said.

  Ajai had warned me about this. ‘They say here that the Vikings became more Irish than the Irish themselves,’ he had said. ‘Don't do that. It would be no help to anybody.’

  Thousands of people had gathered to protest and I can't say I blamed them. Their country was in disarray and the political leadership seemed hopelessly inadequate. But the marchers were in good humour, cheerfully defiant.

  ‘I've never protested before. It's kind of fun,’ I said under my breath to Dermot. But he was distracted. All the Irish negotiators were passing around Nurofen Plus tablets and using energy drinks to wash them down.

  ‘Want some?’ Dermot asked.

  ‘No, I don't have a headache,’ I said.

  ‘Take some anyway,’ Dermot insisted and handed me two.

  I shrugged and swallowed them. Why they all have headaches I don't know. They take enough screen breaks.

  It was true that I had never marched in anger or solidarity and I was surprised when I quite liked it. Ordinary people marching for their jobs, their pensions – there was nothing wrong with that. I felt for them. And the crowd continued to be cheerful even as it grew in number.

  By contrast, the negotiators from the Department of Finance were becoming boisterous and aggressive. Dermot puffed up his chest when he spotted a group of people he knew. I recognised some of them from lunch at l'Ecrivain the previous day, but they were no longer friendly and affable as they had been on that occasion.

  ‘It's the Department of Justice boys,’ Dermot hissed. ‘They think they're the No. 1 firm in the country but we'll show them. No one tells us Finance men what to do. Come on!’ he roared.

  After that, it all happened very quickly. We were suddenly chasing the civil servants from the Department of Justice down a series of side streets until they found themselves in a cul-de-sac and were forced to turn and face us. Cornered, they bunched together and charged straight at us. I saw Dermot go down under a flurry of punches. They closed in on him and started kicking him on the ground. Before I realised what I was doing, I had picked up a corrugated bin and charged at them. They fell away from Dermot and I rounded on the biggest of them – a man who only yesterday had accepted two premium tickets to the rugby from Dermot in l'Ecrivain. Two quick punches to the head and one to the gut put him on the ground. I looked for the next person to hit but they were scurrying away to lick their wounds.

  I helped Dermot up. Remarkably, he was completely unharmed.

  ‘We showed those Justice boys. We're still the No. 1 firm – thanks to you,’ Dermot said, brushing down his suit.

  I shudder to admit it, and I certainly wouldn't say it out loud, but I actually enjoyed the melee. I knew it was wrong, but something about it felt kind of liberating. I'm not sure what came over me.

  We regrouped in a small pub. Dermot ordered drinks for everyone and swallowed another two Nurofen with his Guinness. He must be plagued with headaches.

  ‘Who was that I hit?’ I asked him.

  ‘Only the top man in the Department of Justice,’ he said. ‘Everyone in government will fear the IMF now
!’

  That hadn't been my intention.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘There's something I've been curious about. How did you get to be top man in Finance?’

  ‘Length of service,’ he replied, with a knowing grin.

  ‘But you can't be much older than me. How could that be?’ I asked.

  ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘They made a mistake. How else?’

  We ordered more drinks. Dermot went to the toilet and I picked up a free newspaper and read a strange story about an Irish disc jockey on a plane with some Nurofen Plus. So that's what they were up to, I thought, as Dermot returned looking pleased with himself.

  ‘I'd better get back to Ajai,’ I said. ‘What will I tell him? What's your negotiating position? What's your bottom line?’

  Dermot looked puzzled. ‘Sure give us whatever you can manage,’ he said. ‘That's all anyone can do. After all, I trust you.’

  ‘What? He trusts us? He TRUSTS us?’

  I had never seen Ajai lose control of himself but he was on the verge of it now. It was Sunday morning and we had been up most of the night finalising the Irish bailout, without the Irish. He went into his office and didn't emerge for two hours.

  ‘Everyone negotiates,’ he said. ‘Why won't he negotiate? What is he playing at? Is he looking for deniability on a deal he didn't negotiate, or is he just an idiot? What should we do? You've spent time with the man, what's your take on this?’ Ajai asked me.

  ‘Realistically, we can do anything we want,’ I said reluctantly – part of me felt like I should be trying to do Dermot a good turn. ‘They'll sign anything we put in front of them.’

  ‘Maybe that's just it,’ Ajai thought aloud. ‘Maybe they're negotiating by not negotiating. If the deal is too tough, they can renege on it.’

  In difficult times in difficult countries I had never seen Ajai lose his composure. Not even for a split second. He may strike fear into the hearts of South American presidents but it was clear to me now that Dermot had him spooked.