This budget will be the defining moment for this Government

NEXT Wednesday we will hear Charlie McGreevy’s first budget of this ‘new’ coalition Government.

It will be his first budget where, despite the fact Christmas is just around the corner, he will be unable to act like Santa Claus as he has done over the previous five.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that whilst this budget is ostensibly for one year, it will have implications for our survival never mind growth over the next several years.

Yet, despite the importance for our future it was much trivialised by the headlines accorded to a leading firm of bookmakers, taking odds on what colour tie Charlie would be wearing.

Trivialising commitments and telling the truth back in May is one thing, but continuing that trivialisation is another matter.

It makes one wonder if we really have descended into a banana republic.

Without doubt, the budget to be delivered in two days time will be the defining moment for this Government, Unfortunately, if it fails to deal with the real issues, we the taxpayers, will be the real losers.

This Government will have more than four years to protect their own comfortable seats and enhance their possibility of getting back into government again. And even if they do not form the next Government, they stand to receive fat pension cheques whilst they continue to work and earn.

Incompetence or inability is not punished it's a win-win situation, and in that respect they are little different to their bedfellows, many senior managers in both public and private sector companies and plcs.

Our greatest fear, as taxpayers, is they really have no vested interest in getting it right from the perspective of the national interest. There is nothing to prevent them from pandering to the narrow self-interest of a small group of powerful lobbyists and their clients.

Already the National Spatial Strategy, just published, has attempted to offer the standard Irish solution, which is to give a little to everyone and to spread it so wide that everybody benefits somewhat.

Unfortunately, that approach means decisions have been taken on narrow political grounds rather than on sound commercial or strategic ones. It will be the wrong way to go, but the likelihood is that will the approach underlying the budget on Wednesday.

Charlie and many of his colleagues in health and education have shown more than once that they are afraid or unable to take on the vested interests.

Sooner or later someone is going to have to it's better if it's tackled now rather than later.

As outlined in the recently published Forfas Annual Competitiveness Report 2002, we, as a nation, are becoming less and less competitive.

Unfortunately, if we continue to throw money into proverbial holes in the ground like the health sector, our competitiveness is going to be even further reduced.

That spells doom for any hope we might have of reinvigorating the tiger. We deserve an effective and efficient health service.

We have neither, and unless the underlying problems and blockages are dealt with emphatically, we never will. So, if Charlie has to do anything it must be to commit to evaluating what exactly we are looking for and what we need across the board and not just in the health area.

We can then decide on how they might most effectively be delivered and the structures necessary.

Clearly, a country this size does not need nine or 10 health boards yet, a report commissioned some time ago said we did.

Also, when the problem is at the proverbial coal face of the health service, employing more and more people to drive desks isn't in anybody's interest yet, that is what happened.

To ensure that we get a strategy and implementation plan devoid of vested interests, we need those evaluating the system and our needs to be transparently objective.

So, on Wednesday, Charlie's objective should be to put plans in place to effectively tackle the issues that have helped bring us to this sorry state or that potentially will keep us there, such as an inadequate infrastructure.

If all he and his colleagues can do is focus on the same old hoary chestnuts then we can know for a fact he really isn't up to the job we pay him that serious money for.

After all he is proving that he is devoid of imagination and the ability to tackle the 'sacred cows' in this economy.