It is known that even the mandarins in Finance, normally pretty cocky about anything they propose, were unsure right to the last about the ultimate course chosen by Brian Lenihan.

The minister presented it well to the Dáil, but his surefooted delivery masked the degree of uncertainty within the cabinet and among the ranks of the senior civil service right up to the day itself. The considerably more muted response from the government benches compared to last October's standing ovation was further evidence of this nervousness. Confidence is draining away.

My particular interest in this budget related as much to the other side of the balance sheet to that which generated the most attention.

I look at these events selfishly, at least at initially. Concerns about the wider public interest are always secondary to the assessment of the impact the national financial planning events have on me and my family. I had assumed this 'special edition' was not going to be very good for a high-income south Dublin family with two children and so it proved. Two things did surprise me though – the severity of the 'hit' on the personal side and the almost complete abandonment of the small and medium enterprise sector of which I am part.

The abject failure to support medium sized enterprise is as baffling, as it is maddening.

The latest wasted opportunity is however consistent with the complete failure of government to grasp what is going on in the real economy. I apologise to those who have read me referencing this before, but our SME sector is such a vital part of any possible economic recovery that this government's refusal to really embrace it and cajole it back to life is bordering on economic suicide.

For those of us who work in the sector and who have found no succour from any official quarter for our problems it amounts to deserting those who have perhaps done most to fuel, sensibly, the economic growth of the past 15 years. I would gladly accept the hit on my personal financial situation if I saw real focus by government on my business needs. The failure to help me and thousands like me who provide employment and generate direct and indirect tax revenues is scandalous.

I have made 50% of my staff redundant in the past six months. Those who remain have taken a 10% pay cut and I have invested more cash and taken a pay pause to help keep the business alive.

The company has bank debt that it is desperately trying to service but because we are not in the development business we will not get any preferential treatment. To cap it all, the new EIB €300m SME loan fund to be made available through three Irish banks is not open to my company because our balance sheet is not pristine.

What I had hoped for to balance the inevitable grief on the personal side of this budget was real attention being paid to my business needs and those of the thousands like me who, with the right support, can survive and over the coming years make a significant impact on the road to economic recovery.

What did we get? SFA!

That term brings me neatly to the Small Firms Association (SFA) and its apparent failure and that of ISME to get this problem across to government. I am the ultimate hurler on the ditch who never gets involved but is only too quick to criticise industry groupings. While it may be unfair, it appears neither the lobby groups nor the minister for business, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, made the case for our real stimuli to be provided to our sector of the economy.

I deliberately avoid using the formal – Enterprise and Employment – term for her portfolio. Business is what her job is about and she has failed to deliver because she has not engaged strongly enough with real business. This is frustrating because she has the ability. Cowen knows that but has failed to provide her with the direction that any CEO is obliged to do with his management team.

Never was this failure more evident than in the lack of balance to last week's emergency budget.

I believe my personal circumstances are shared by many. In the wider socio/economic context they may not be that relevant given the already high number of unemployed and the travails of those whose circumstances are a great deal more serious than mine are ever likely to be.

It is worth paying attention to the plight of a man in his early 50s: he has lost 60% of the capital he had built up over the course of a 25-year career, is carrying significant personal debt, while his own business suffers from declining sales and might not survive past September.

I have no quibble with paying tax at the highest rate and with doubling my income levies. But I feel huge disappointment that the excesses of the public sector were not tackled, nor was there evidence the super rich overseas tax dodgers were dealt with. The prospects for my small but important business are no better after this emergency budget than they were at 3.59pm last Tuesday afternoon.