The truth about why we are so deep in recession is simply because we haven’t had a leader since Haughey.  Like or dislike him, and I would have serious issues with him, but he understood one thing – and that was that when things are bad, a leader must be positive and drive and push forwards, and when things are good a leader must try to slow the ship down, especially when the good is based on false foundations and expectations.

Since he has gone, Bertie fuelled the hype, or at least did nothing to slow it, and now that the bubble has burst Cowen is slowing things, just as he should be driving forward.  To be fair to Bertie, he brought peace to the North and was very popular on the World stage, which helped us a lot, but he was too nice to some of the wrong people – which is costing us now.

The letter that Ben Dunne wrote in the Independent is fantastic, simply because it’s so real, and it’s he should be Taoiseach. One of the things that he wrote was that we should ask ourselves: “What’s the worst that can happen here? How do we deal with that eventuality, and how do move forward knowing the answers to the first two questions?” I have always made my business decisions based on those very same questions.  What he is saying is that instead of dribbling bad news everyday as it comes out, we should throw it out hard and fast so that everyone knows where we stand.  And believe me, regardless of how bad that is, people respect and feel much more comfortable when they know the truth.  Now everyone is wondering how bad it is instead of how we fix it.  Give people the bottom line and get on with whatever we have to deal with – with a smile…