BUSINESS OPINION:NOW YOU know why they called it an economic miracle. Looking at the tizzy into which our political masters have got themselves, it really is a wonder that things went as well as they did over the past decade.
The economic and fiscal weakness of our current crop of political leaders has been cruelly exposed over the last 10 months.
It is not that they are inherently incompetent. On the contrary, some of them are both bright and able. It's just that they served their political apprenticeships during a time of unparalleled economic expansion. They are of a political culture used to worrying about how they were going to spend all the money they have; now they actually have to think about where they are going to get it.
And - it should be said - they are not the only ones: there are businesses across the country facing the same rather painful metamorphosis.
But our political masters don't get off the hook that easily.
It's one thing for someone to run a business with the pretty short-term focus of making money and give no real thought to what the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), the OECD and every other seasoned observer is telling them is happening in the wider world.
It's not excusable for the Government to ignore such warnings. But the reality is that the ESRI and others have been banging on about the risks of externals shocks and a property crash for years. It's pretty clear at this stage that nobody in Government bothered to think about some sort of plan B if these eventualities came to pass.
The decision last week to bring the budget forward by two months does not constitute a rational response. It falls firmly into the realm of "activity" rather than "action".
There is, in reality, very little of any consequence that can be achieved by having the budget two months early. It might provide some sort of domestic political fig leaf, but anyone observing from outside cannot but be reminded of the late 1980s when the country was an economic basket case.
An early budget is a largely pointless exercise from the point of view of fiscal management. Any changes to the tax system will happen no sooner than if the budget was in December, because the tax system cannot facilitate it. Hence the decision to set a date for the budget, but only make some vague commitment to have the Finance Bill - which gives the budget day measures effect - through the system by the end of the year.
The more we hear about this brainwave, the clearer it becomes that the decision to bring forward the budget has everything to do with trying to make the Government look like it's in control and very little to do with actually facing up to the problems that confront the economy.
And the real danger is this: as long as the Government focuses on saving its own tarnished image, more mistakes will be made.
The biggest blunder would be to make the centrepiece of the early budget another ham-fisted initiative in a series of failed ham-fisted initiatives to try to manipulate the property market.
If there is one thing this Government has failed to learn over the past decade, it is that interventions in the property market fail.
There is nothing that can be done in the short term to reverse the change in sentiment towards property. Introducing a stimulus package next October is the equivalent of opening a bottle of champagne as your guests are leaving the party at 3am. The polite and the desperate might stay and have a drink with you, but the party is still over.
But the belief that the 10-year old-property party can be kept going still persists among property developers and the banks that have backed them.
The credit crunch may be forcing the banks to act more responsibly in terms of their lending, but the latest wheeze dreamt up by Ray Grehan and Bernard McNamara last week indicates that, for some at least, reality is still some way off.
The basic fact that seems to have escaped both men is this: if you have to give someone an interest-free loan to buy your apartments, then you are charging too much for them.
A sustained recovery in the property market - and all that means for the wider economy - will only begin when prices find their new level.
The decision to bring forward the budget - with all its connotations of deepening crisis and panic - has damaged Ireland's hard-won reputation for competent economic management.
If the focus of this ill-conceived budget turns out to be little more than a doomed rescue package for property developers and the banks, then it is clear it is a competent reputation we don't deserve.
