Left out in the cold

SO far the battle for Dáil seats with parties using the economy as a weapon looks like a macabre play with few links to reality when viewed from Brussels.

Sound bites about interest rates, banks, investment, renegotiating deals, swapping raising taxes for reducing spending are close to the obscene.

As up to 2,000 of the best educated youth in Europe desert the country every week and the ECB worries about the €100 billion it has vested in Irish banks, the election debate so far has thrown up little by way of leadership or lateral thinking.