DÁIL SKETCH:IT WAS difficult to know whether the Taoiseach was more traumatised by the door falling off Kamikaze Cullen's helicopter or the bottom falling out of Mr Lenihan's adjustments.

Whichever it was, Brian Cowen looked shell-shocked in the Dáil yesterday. While the Minister for Sport’s bit of midair bother on Monday defied prediction, the Taoiseach could hardly have been surprised by the disastrous fall in tax revenue during the first two months of this year.

“We only got these figures today,” a forlorn Biffo told the Opposition, with the mystified air of a man who had been carefully piling sandbags around his daffodils in anticipation of a high tide while oblivious to the tsunami racing towards the rooftops.

Everyone else spotted the rising wall of water. It blocked out the sun as it rushed towards land. “Do something!” they urged.

But not Canute Cowen, stubbornly standing against the oncoming deluge when anyone with half a brain was running screaming towards the lifeboats.

Even on Saturday night, when he had the perfect opportunity to inform a worried nation that the time has come to batten down the hatches and face the painful onslaught, he was unable to come up with an evacuation plan.

“All options are being looked at,” he told the Fianna Fáil ardfheis and an audience in television land, as viewers shivered in their sou’westers and dusted down the words of Nearer My God to Thee. It was something to do in the absence of any emergency plan from their Taoiseach.

But yesterday, when the exchequer returns crashed through the doors of Government Buildings, even Cowen conceded it was time to act. Sort of. He just needs a bit of time to take a good run at at.

Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore were alarmed. They begged him to say what steps he has decided to take in order to bring a modicum of calm to an increasingly desperate situation.

“If it’s decided, and I believe, based on what is emerging, that there will have to be some revenue raising aspect to this matter, that that will be done through a Finance Number Two Bill in the normal way,” he said.

It didn’t help that he had Kamikaze Cullen sitting beside him, reliving his chopper hell in the skies above Killarney. Poor Martin looked like he was suffering from post-traumatic stress, staring wordlessly into the distance.

Word had already seeped through to the press gallery above that the Government was going to introduce an emergency budget within weeks. All that remained was for Canute Cowen to confirm it. But he wouldn’t. He refused to give a straight answer.

As the rising floodwaters sloshed around the chamber floor, the Fine Gael and Labour leaders pleaded with him to come out and state the obvious. But the Taoiseach could not bring himself to say that his Government will, finally, bring in a new budget.

After weeks of being told from many quarters that introducing one is of critical importance to the country’s future, he just couldn’t say the B word. There would be “revenue raising” and “expenditure cuts” and necessary adjustments. Try as they might – and they tried with all their might – Canute Cowen stood firm.

“Today, we have indicated that, by the end of this month, we will take whatever steps are necessary,” was all he would say.

But the situation has gone beyond playing word games. Why this silly carry-on? Why couldn’t he come out and just say it? As in: “Look. We’re in a dire state. Things are changing rapidly, and not for the better. We have to bring forward the budget. I know we said that this wouldn’t happen, but there you are.”

Gilmore’s patience was running thin. “Now, is there or is there not going to be a new budget introduced to the House?”

And Biffo, who makes Hamlet look impetuous, replied: “We have indicated that we will meet and make political decisions based on what’s emerging . . . and whatever requirements are made arising out of those decisions will be taken in the House in due course . . .” It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

After his bizarre performance, serious questions were being asked. Why won’t the Taoiseach admit that his Minister has to bring in a new budget?

Is it because, for so long, the Government has insisted they won’t have to do this?

Is it because Cowen doesn’t want to lose face? Is it because the likes of Garret FitzGerald and Peter Sutherland said an emergency budget was the way to go? Is it because the Opposition said the same thing? Is he that bloody minded, and tribal, that he can’t stomach taking advice from outside the Fianna Fáil tent? Are we really in a “you’re not the boss of me” situation?

Already, the Opposition was concerned about missing persons. The tsunami has hit.

The cry went out. Is there a Minnie Budget in the House? She’s missing. They want to see her. But Brian Cowen is unable to help. The informed opinion is that Minnie Budget, God help her, is already gone. Drowned, too small to cope with the calamity.

No. The search is now on for Maxi, her big sister. She’s still on dry ground, and by the end of the month, Cowen will have to produce her. And there’s nothing Canute Cowen can do to hold her back.