Meet Richard Bruton. Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Master of crocodile tears.

Before UK firm Talk Talk casually disposed of its 575 Waterford staff it sent them an email pep-talk congratulating them on reaching set targets. But, you hardly need telling that sweat and loyalty has no meaning to a multi-national. Scenes of despairing workers dumped on the scrap heap are all too familiar in this recession, and while it’s galling to suffer the double-speak of Irish politicians at the best of times, it was doubly enraging to watch this Bruton fucker do a crocodile tears routine at the plant gates about his inability to convince management to push the closure back. If he meant it, surely he’d legislate to stop companies running out on communities at 30 days notice? He is a government minister after all. This IMF hit-man and ranking government scumbag is making it his personal mission to take away Sunday special pay and undermine the rights of agency staff in exactly the sort of jobs ex-Talk Talk heads will end up in IF they are lucky.