Economy in crisis - Everything depends on this budget

WITH less than a week to go before Finance Minister Brian Lenihan throws the dice one more time to try to turn the tide threatening to swamp us all, the pot is beginning to simmer nicely.

Anger and despair, frustration and self-interest, denial, delusion and a festering sense of being hard done by are turning otherwise calm, rational people into snarling refuseniks, each convinced that the solution to this escalating crisis is in someone else’s pocket.

This bitter division is taking root in a vacuum, a space left empty because of a lack of leadership worthy of the name or, ever more obviously, worthy of the challenge.