No need to panic — the Government has a plan

EMERGENCY over: the Government has a plan to deal with the economic crisis.

Or so we are led to believe. One could be forgiven for entertaining doubts about the ultimate usefulness of the document, however. We’ve been here before, after all.

It’s just two months since Mr Lenihan announced the budget. That budget, you will recall, was brought forward as an emergency measure to put the economy back on track amid a backdrop of global turmoil in the financial markets, the collapse of the domestic construction sector, and the instability of the banks.