Speaking at a public meeting in Sligo town last night on Ireland’s economic future, Deputy Joan Burton slammed the Government’s ham-fisted response to the country’s economic crisis.

“Rather than concentrating on getting Ireland working again, Fianna Fáil have concentrated almost exclusively on saving Anglo Irish, their beloved builders’ bank."

Writing in this month's 'Women Mean Business' magazine, Joan sets out a 5 step jobs plan to get Ireland moving again...

Yesterday, the Minister for Finance went on the TV news to claim that today’s exchequer returns would indicate that the economy has stabilized. If the Minister believes his own claims, it can only mean he is dangerously in denial about the real situation in the national economy

The actual figures released today show no sign of recovery. Income tax receipts remain extraordinarily weak with a year on year fall of 8.2%. While VAT and other headings are in line with Government targets, they are also very significantly below the yields for 2009. Capital spending is now € 803 million below target and the repeated excuse that this is due to timing factors is looking very threadbare indeed.

The disclosure that Anglo Irish Bank incurred losses of €8.2bn losses in the first six months of this year is yet more disastrous news for the Irish taxpayer and reinforces the case for an early government decision on the orderly wind-down of the bank.

Today’s figures confirm that Anglo was never of systemic importance to the Irish economy and show instead that it has become systemically destructive of Ireland’s capacity to recover and to restore its banking system.

Anglo Irish is not just the biggest bank failure in Irish economic history, either before or since independence, it has also turned out to be one of the biggest corporate failures anywhere in the world.

Following the disclosure that the Green Party has now changed its position in regard to the future of Anglo Irish Bank, it is essential that the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, now clarifies what exactly are the government’s proposals for the bank.

With the Greens now supporting a quicker wind-down of Anglo, the Fianna Fail position of keeping the bank afloat regardless of the cost, is now a minority view within the Dail.

The downgrading of Irish public debt by Standard and Poors has dealt a body blow to the international credibility of the Government’s banking strategy. Of greater significance has been the steady increase over recent weeks in the cost of borrowing for Ireland and yesterday the so called bond spread that measures the additional price Ireland has to pay over Germany rose to a record level. In early trading today, this spread reached no less than 335 points, representing a 3.35% interest premium we have to pay for long term borrowing.

It's a funny old world. Those were Margaret's Thatcher's last words as she left Downing Street bewildered by the events that ended her career. Brian Cowen and his hapless Ministers may be forgiven if they feel the same after a bruising year.

The experts assured them that austerity was the way to go. Take the pain now and the international markets would reward the effort through lower borrowing costs not to mention flattering articles in NEWSWEEK. The spectre of the Greek troubles was added in to the mix as a dire warning of the negative effects of any weakness in governmental resolve.

There may be a winter of discontent in store for Swords based commuters as the Minister for Transport considers his options after the recent High Court order which overturned his decision to allow the 41X service to use the Dublin Port Tunnel. This saga is now running for more than two years and doesn’t look like ending any time soon.

I have great sympathy for the 36 employees of Bank of Scotland (Ireland) told today that they will definitely join the 750 who lost their jobs at the bank earlier this year and for the 800 employees who will now be very worried about their futures as the bank’s activities are wound down over time.

We have heard all about ghost estates and zombie hotels, but it now looks like Dublin 15 could get its very own ‘ghost train station’.

Although the grand opening of the Dunboyne rail line has been scheduled for September 2nd, it now appears that the Hansfield station, which was to serve the growing population centres of Ongar and Littlepace, will remain unopened until the property developer concerned provides the agreed access road.