By the time you have arrived at this column, you will no doubt have had your fill of banks and their various bailouts.

It has been sickening to watch this slow-motion car crash, and I doubt that this will be the last disaster. The residential mortgage market remains the bomb still ticking on the balance sheets of all the main banks. This little firecracker will not go off like the big Nama bomb, but it will crackle along like a Chinese squib over the next few years.

Despite this, and without wishing to sound like Brian Lenihan, we are getting close to the bottom of this crisis.

The route to here has been very slow and wasteful but at least we have nearly arrived at the destination.

Now that we all accept that Ireland the patient is very sick, we can up the dose of the bitter medicine that she badly needs.

In truth, we are probably past the point of pharmacology and it is time to break out the electric shock pads. We need something to get us back up and operating again.

There is good news in the bad news. Think of us as a young patient who was burning the candle at both ends, living life too fast. We have had a shock, and it's been a big one, but we can get through it.

We need to change our ways, lose some weight and get fit again, but once we do this, we can be great for many more years.

I would still bet on us against the ageing European countries with their pension timebombs.

We are finally beginning to deal with the property bubble and the subsequent crash, and we are getting close to the final bill. The government seems committed to finally dealing with the bloated public sector by way of cutbacks and new sustainable taxes. At the end of this four-year correction, we are going to be a lean, mean, exporting machine.

With this target firmly in our sights we now need the heavy lifting to begin. We need to get out there and generate some growth.

I know many people are trying, and it is frustrating, but it is possible. As a nation we need to support each other on this common mission. The success should become infectious once it takes hold. As the bumper sticker says: "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go".

The past looks very grim, and the future is equally uncertain, so our only choice is to live in the now and get stuck in. Worrying about the length of time that it is going to take to rebuild and remodel our economy is too daunting after last week.

Rental robbery

As the pillars of the banking system have been removed one by one, some of the other rocks of Irish business need to be dismantled once and for all.

Dundrum Town Centre was in the news this week looking for rent increases from its already beleaguered tenants.

This kind of selfish 'beggar thy neighbour' policy undermines our entire business system, and in the end it will destroy the centre itself. I had a retail business that was crushed by these crazy rents, and the rent review system needs to be completely dismantled.

The antiquated concept of rents being reviewed every five years, and only ever being forced upwards, is a hangover from the days when landlords ruled the country, and we all swore an oath to the queen. Let's end this madness now.

The collapse that has taken place in the economy gives us the cover to destroy these and other crazy contracts.

An efficient method to calculate the rent on a shop needs to be put in place, which allows for the cycles of the market. Turnover rent is the logical way to calculate this. If it's good enough for the Revenue Commissioners to trust the shopkeeper, why can't landlords offer a similar system?

Flexibility is key to our future success, and we need this in all sectors of business, ranging from rental contracts, to finance, to employment agreements.