Country is now broken as well as plain broke

THE desperate events of the past 48 hours left Ireland not just a broke country, but a broken country — and now it has a broken Taoiseach too.

Just as the Government was meant to be putting on a united front as it negotiated the terms of the country’s economic surrender to the IMF it instead chose to tear itself apart.

Brian Cowen finally appeared in public seven hours and 21 minutes after the crisis had detonated and once again hurtled Ireland across the international buzz wires and rolling news TV screens for all the wrong reasons.