Just before last year’s budget, Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar told a meeting of the depleted members of his parliamentary party that he was hurt by attacks on him, led by former ministers, Michael Creed and Charlie Flanagan, who complained that the party of conservative economics was spending borrowed money in a way which would make the hardcore Trotskyists of People Before Profit blush. The ghosts of Fine Gael Ministers for Finance past from Paddy McGilligan to Richie Ryan must have smiled. Their Fine Gael was the party of sound money. In the early years of the state, McGilligan famously…

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