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THE GOVERNMENT is dangerously out of step with public opinion, as Fianna Fáil backbenchers told it yesterday. People want the Government to get on with it: to introduce a budget next week with €4 billion in real and measurable savings so that we can start believing in ourselves again. The idea that the public service could offer 12 unpaid leave days as their contribution towards economic recovery was rejected by the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. These TDs live in the real world. They know that the promise of future productivity never materialised in the benchmarking days of Bertie Ahern; it has to be agreed now in 2010. The political conditioning has been done. The real world, apparently, a realistic world, miles away from Leinster House.

At a time when firmness and clarity were needed in reducing the State’s pay bill and establishing the foundations for economic recovery, Taoiseach Brian Cowen showed weakness and indecision. His behaviour has dismayed Fianna Fáil backbenchers; caused shock to the general public and set alarm bells ringing on financial markets.