It has been suggested that my past as a Fine Gael politician renders me unsuitable and inappropriate as a broadcast presenter because of party prejudice. I want to confront this issue head-on.

The OPW is renting – at high cost – dozens of unoccupied buildings, partly arising out of the aborted decentralisation scheme. It’s a disgrace. Heads should roll. I would issue an edict to terminate such leases forthwith.

Every forecast he and the Government have made over the past three years has been laughably wrong. The forecasts of the live register of unemployed and tax revenues have been so erroneous that ordinary people just don’t believe the Government has a proper grip on the deteriorating economic situation

How can a country with a GDP output of €150bn a year continually borrow €30bn annually to run Government services? Is it not completely inevitable that the IMF and world bankers will have to take charge of the situation? Bring it on

FF’s results in previous Euro elections are poor. From 1979 to 2004 the average FF Euro vote over the 30-year period was 34.73%. Over the same period, the FF vote in general elections from 1981 to 2007 shows a significant differential. Their average over nine general elections was 43.05%

I can’t shed many tears for the teachers. Especially when I reflect on the sleepless nights we are all having in coping with our fears of job insecurity and falling incomes.

THE Government’s army of spin have been busy over the past week. They have been trying to convince us that the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) plan is: the only way to restore bank credit to the wider economy; there is no alternative and they know what they are doing.

MIDDLE-INCOME Ireland is set to receive the bills for a decade of excessive Government spending. Significantly less take home pay will be a reality from May 1 for ordinary workers.

Over the past two weeks the Government has spun the message that previous fiscal targets are to be relaxed. An exchequer annual deficit of 9.5% or €17.5bn could stretch to 12%. We are now embarking along the same road as the 1980s

UNEMPLOYMENT has reached 354,000 and is rising at the rate of 1,000 per day. Brian Cowen told the Dáil it could exceed 450,000 by year end. All his estimates to date have been overly optimistic. The reality is that we face the prospect of more than half a million jobless.