The Budget is bearing down on us with all deliberate speed while we and the markets are waiting. Only time will tell if acting-Taoiseach Brian Lenihan will have the cojones to do the needful and take an axe to the public sector spending bill. But at this stage it looks like he doesn't have a choice anyway.
The only sliver of doubt for those of us who want to see Ireland back on the path to recovery, is the continued courting of the "social partners" by the Cowen regime. This is now beyond a joke. We could understand a certain danse macabre quality to Cowen's previous flirtings with the unions et al, when he was trying to win both the Lisbon Treaty referendum and the Green Party's support for NAMA - no point coming over like Clint Eastwood when they've all got your unmentionables in their grip - but this continuing pretence that things are still like the good old days under Bertie, when the unions were ushered in to Kildare St to give their orders to the Government, is just pathetic.
If Lenihan can ram the necessary budget provisions down the neck of his lily-livered backbenchers, and keep national disgraces like Michael Lowry onside, then perhaps he should go the whole hog and take out Cowen as well. Not a solitary TD would stand in his way, and he would finally have a mandate to do what has to be done. Commentators say he would have to go for an election. But this is not necessary so long as he has the support of the Dail and the President - that's the law and that's all that matters.
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