I spent the last few weeks paying a little game. The game was to try to predict what the government was going to do in the budget. I had to give up, unfortunately, due to one inalienable fact. The third generation Fianna Fail aristocracy running the country are SO incompetent that it's hard to know what they're going to do.
And so it was today. After the sideshow regarding locking everyone, including the members of the press, into the Dail chamber, Brian Lenihan (the second) set out his second budget, because his first one was, frankly, bollocks.
What was the aim of the new budget? What was its purpose? Mainly to look tough. They want to look serious and credible. Some things were interesting: the nod to social democracy in the shape of one year's free pre school for all children in other times could have been visionary, but it wasn't placed in the context of a broader social programme.
Setting up a toxic bank was interesting, but will it restore confidence in our banks, or will it be seen as a sop to developers who borrowed more than they could repay?
And did the government sufficiently grab the state's finances by the scruff of the neck and amend for how the government frittered away record tax receipts over the last decade, whilst doing nothing to stop banks from lending to any gobshite and pumping up a property market to the point of disaster.
George Lee said it didn't add up. They spoke of having a five year plan. I watched the whole thing and saw no such plan. I hope they're right and I'm wrong, but I'm gonna keep wearing my pre-browned recession trousers just in case.
