Leaked to the last detail to prepare the ground and spun to the nth degree to ensure that the unthinkable of wage cuts for the public sector and welfare cuts for the blind and the widowed would actually seem acceptable, the budget will get through its first political hoops in the Dáil, but whether, to coin a phrase, "the worst is over" remains to be seen.

Brian Lenihan's last words on his budget were unequivocal, but scarcely credible to anyone who has lost a job, or experienced - or is about to experience ? a major pay cut: "Our plan is working," he concluded. "We have turned the corner."

While many who are without jobs will be scratching their heads and wondering "Plan? What plan?" no doubt the minister for finance's positive stance was well-intended, a stab at trying to convince the nation that this painful budget marks the fact that we have finally hit rock bottom in our economic nosedive. After all, if he doesn't believe that the fiscal strategy he has undertaken will get us out of this mess then who will?

A message of hope is certainly needed. But it has to be backed up by policy. And on the day he cut the salaries of more than 320,000 employees, made 38 separate cuts to welfare benefits , savaged a range of services from dental treatment to public transport, and predicted a further 72,000 job losses in 2010, to tell us that "the worst is over" is as likely to ignite anger as encourage us to put our shoulders to the wheel in solidarity.

If anything, for most people 2010 will be a lot worse than this year and to try to gloss over this is insulting our intelligence.

Questions must be asked about the strategy that called for so much individual sacrifice, but gave nothing but empty words in return on the jobs front, all wrapped up with cack-handed allusions to the solidarity shown during the floods disaster.

Had a real jobs policy been a part of this recovery plan people would have felt more confident that they are part of a society and not an economy with a balance sheet to sort out. But as it is, people once again feel alienated because they know that, far from being earmarked for jobs, whatever (off balance sheet) spare billions are sure to be found from somewhere in 2010, they will once again go to the banks.

The sad part of it all is that this was a lost opportunity to create real national solidarity because there is widespread acceptance among the public - and all political parties - that the €4bn cuts are necessary. The public-sector pay bill is unsustainable. The country is not taking in enough tax to pay for public services on this scale and the levels of pay are patently among the highest in Europe.

Clearly the unions' proposal of unpaid leave with aspirational reforms - all to be voluntarily agreed - came nowhere near what was and will be needed and Brian Lenihan's decisiveness in ensuring cuts that are permanent and across the board does display a much-needed strength of purpose.

There is less consensus over the cuts in 38 welfare payments. These will inflict real hardship on many individuals despite what the minister tells us about falling prices.

But if this budget was to deliver hope and inspire a national effort and if we were really to believe it was a turning point, then it should also have included some sort of strategy to deliver jobs. And if not enough jobs, then enough quality training places for school leavers and graduates this year, and the following years until the economy regains its own strength.

But a dubious car scrappage scheme, a free transport scheme for overseas pensioners on holidays in Ireland, a limited house-insulation programme, a reversal of last year's massive mistake on Vat and a cut in the price of a pint are value-less in terms of what should be done.

There are a couple of very limited supports for employers, but these, along with the new appeals body to which small businesses can complain if they feel they have been badly served by the banks are pure window-dressing. Nobody believes in any of them and they add more bureaucracy to an already overly bureaucratic system and certainly won't cut business costs or create a single job.

The government will get this budget through, but the price to be paid in terms of national and social solidarity will be huge. One of the most frightening statistics at the moment is that 25% of those out of work are under 25. The 26,000 new training places announced in the budget can't hope to meet demand, especially when a further 50,000 leave school next year.

Some believe that it is exaggerating to call the jobless under-25s a "lost generation" and dismiss their needs but, as we have seen before, once graduates and school leavers cannot find a job or a relevant third-level course, they can never catch up. If they cannot find a job before the next cohort leaves college the following year, they will go abroad, as they did under Brian Lenihan snr.

The budgetary cuts are necessary but although they go to balancing the books they are not a balanced approach to creating and protecting jobs. All the rest is rhetoric, a meaningless soundbite, as over 500,000 people will experience very personally next year.