Morning Ireland

The people who decide whether Ireland is doing enough to get the next instalment of our bailout loans will be back in Dublin tomorrow. Did I say "bailout"? It is, of course, "The EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland".

But most people call it the "bailout", including Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty who criticised it again during his interview this morning about the latest Exchequer returns.

From time to time, some listeners object to the term, on the grounds that it’s not, correctly speaking, a "bailout" at all. The dictionaries give considerable support to their objection. A "bailout" is:

"An act of giving financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse"

according to the Oxford online dictionary, and

"A rescue from financial distress"

according to Merriam-Webster.

Now, rescuers don’t normally charge interest rates, and assistance doesn’t necessarily involve payment of a fee. So, by those definitions, you have to add some arguable terms and conditions to the normal definition of "bailout" to claim that it’s an accurate description of loans on which the average interest rate is 5.8 per cent.

On the other hand, it’s fair to point out that the EU and IMF loans are being advanced to Ireland at a time when the country can no longer borrow on financial markets. Still, the accuracy of "bailout" to describe what we’re getting is, at best, unsatisfactory.

Despite the fact that "bailout" critics like Pearse Doherty and Socialist TD Joe Higgins use the term frequently, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before people object again to its use.

Some listeners suggest presenters like me should refer to a "so-called bailout". But that’s clumsy and appears to express an opinion – something I try to avoid. In any case, radio presenters have another defence, especially when they’re writing Morning Ireland’s 7am or 8am billboard which tells you, briefly, what’s coming up on the programme.

"The EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland" takes three seconds to say.

"Bailout" can be spoken in less than a second.

Brevity isn’t everything, but when you’ve just 17 seconds to preview the programme, you can’t beat "bailout".