CRISIS, which crisis? Trying to deal with any one of a shaky banking system, a massive rise in unemployment, or a hole in the public finances so big that Stephen Hawking might be tempted to write his next book about it would be a major challenge for any government. To try and deal with all three at the same time is well-nigh impossible.

For that reason, it is now clear that a national government must be put together in a bid to ensure that all the massive gains of the past 20 years – and there were huge strides made – are not thrown away.

The task is clearly beyond the current government. But equally it is beyond its inevitable successors, Fine Gael and Labour. That is not a criticism of their abilities, just a political reality.

What is required to address the crisis are changes so radical, so all-encompassing and so unpopular that no political party – unless it had a particular death wish – could introduce them without being driven not just from office, but possibly from politics altogether.

There is a viewpoint being commonly expressed on the public airwaves in recent weeks that the public are ready for tough decisions and to take the pain – once it is "evenly spread" – in the national interest.

It is an interesting viewpoint but one that is entirely without evidence to back it up. Everything – repeat EVERYTHING – that has happened over the past six months suggests that people want tough decisions, as long as it doesn't impact on them personally. The furore over the medical cards for pensioners last October was the first sign of this. Yes, it was abysmally handled. Yes, there were genuine fears that people who couldn't afford to live without a medical card would be hit. But most of the furore can be put down to the old political adage that once a government gives something, it cannot take it away. It simply didn't matter that the status quo was not only wrong, but financially unsustainable.

The near revolution that greeted an entirely reasonable policy decision that public servants should make a modest contribution for their guaranteed, gilt-edged pensions – the likes of which are simply not accessible in the private sector – is another example of this. As was the uproar over a pretty negligible levy on second homes.

And the problem is that we now know that these measures, tough and all as they undoubtedly are, barely touch the surface of what is required.

Imagine the public reaction if and when the big untouchables are tackled. How will people react if and when a property tax is introduced? What will they do if and when the government taxes child benefit or scraps the Christmas social welfare bonus payment or lowers the threshold at which people start paying tax or reintroduces third-level fees or imposes punitive carbon levies that hit motorists?

And perhaps more importantly, how will the opposition react? Will they, in the national interest, consider the measures and decide that, because of the crisis in the public finances, they will have to throw their weight behind them? Hardly.

More likely, Fine Gael and Labour will talk earnestly about the need for difficult decisions and will then proceed to oppose every one of them in the Dáil. The property tax will be "unfairly applied". Taxing child benefit will be "too blunt an instrument". The thresholds for those paying third-level fees will be "too low". A little like St Augustine and his "Lord make me chaste, but not yet" line, their mantra will be: "we need savings and new taxes, but not these savings and new taxes".

Again, this isn't meant as a particular criticism of the two opposition parties. Fianna Fáil TDs would do the same, with bells on, if they manned the opposition benches. And Fine Gael, at least, has made efforts to come up with alternative solutions to bridge the enormous gap between revenue and expenditure.

But, as we saw with that party's opposition to the public sector pension levy, the temptation to play politics is simply too great. And we simply cannot afford anybody playing politics at the moment.

Such is the level of the global crisis, there is no guarantee that even making the tough decisions will get us out of the mess that we're in. As a tiny, open economy, we are hugely dependent on an international recovery.

But while we wait for that our only chance is to do the right things. And the only way of ensuring the right things are done is by the main political parties presenting a united front and forming a national government.

Politically, it is entirely understandable that Fine Gael and Labour are unenthused by the idea. There are people in Fine Gael who believe "doing the right thing by the nation" (á la the Tallaght Strategy) is one of the key reasons why it has always played second fiddle to Fianna Fáil. And they, not unreasonably, will ask why they should throw a lifebuoy to a party that has effectively been in power for the past two decades and has played a central role in getting us into dire straits.

But this isn't about Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil or Labour or the Greens or Sinn Féin. This about Ireland and her people. If the political parties don't come together to make the difficult, but necessary, decisions, the danger is that somebody else – the IMF or the EU – will.

scoleman@tribune