WAITING GAME MUST END NOW FOR A NATION LIVING IN LIMBO

NOT long after Boris Yeltsin became Russia’s first elected president in 1991, he was asked how he might describe his country’s cratered economy in one word? “Good,” was his answer. Incredulous, the interviewer tried again. All right, in two words?

Without a blink, Yeltsin replied: “Not good.” You can take the president out of the Soviet, etc, but the hold of the ancien regime was too strong. These days a similar fog of obfuscation prevails much closer to home.

Had a gigantic apparatus been installed at the heart of public life to deliberately distort perceptions and create alternative interpretations, it could hardly have achieved more.

Critical concepts such as the identifiable national interest have been allowed to take on a quaint fuzziness. Housing and health emergencies, along with deepening financial turmoil, are blithely set aside, as if they were multiple choice questions to be debated ad nauseam, purely for the nation’s pleasure.

Such a level of political lassitude at a time when our leaders need to be at their sharpest is unsettling.

Adopting a tone the politburo would be proud of,

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan told us Ireland faces a “difficult situation” at the end of the week – if his party members reject the proposed government deal. “The Irish people are waiting to see if a government can be formed,” he said.

Mr Ryan should appreciate we have gone way beyond the point of “if ”.

We now must have a government. Indeed we ought to have had one months ago.

“I hope it can, and if it doesn’t then the political system will be in a difficult situation,” Mr Ryan went on.

The next 48 hours could determine the next decade. We do not need to rely on “hope”. All those invested in the future of this country are depending on our politicians to do what is right.

It is high time to get our country running again, The people will have nothing but contempt for politicians running in the opposite direction.

The ridiculously long talks have finally come to an end and the ratification processes in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens for the draft programme for government will be wrapped up by tomorrow.

The nation expects to see a government in place. Should further prompting be necessary, a blunt warning from the IMF on the global economy should help focus meandering minds.

This year will be the worst global economic contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The pandemic will have a profound impact internationally, Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, said. It was an “unprecedented crisis”.

The US and European countries will bear the brunt of the damage. Their economies are expected to shrink by 8pc this year.

And let nobody be in any doubt, there is no plan B, as our leaders have conceded in recent days.

It is now or never for the parties. The time for digging in, not dropping out, has arrived.

There is no plan B, as our leaders have conceded in recent days