An excellent comeback and Noonan certainly enjoyed delivering it.
Tuesday night’s Prime Time was always going to make for must-watch television following the delivery of Budget 2017 earlier in the day.
Despite reports earlier in the day that he had pulled out of the debate, Finance Minister Michael Noonan eventually appeared on a panel to discuss the budget, where he was joined by Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath, Minister for Communications Denis Naughten and Ruth Coppinger of the Anti-Austerity Alliance.
While the watching audience wouldn’t have been in unanimous agreement with all of Noonan’s utterances on the show, he did gain some kudos for his response to a rather unnecessary and ageist remark by Pearse Doherty during the course of the debate.
Far from recoiling at Doherty’s “I know you’re pushing on in years, but you’re still smart up there” remark, Noonan put the relatively young cub in his box with a cutting retort.
You can recap on the full debate on the RTÉ Player here.
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