Listeners to Drivetime on RTé Radio One are currently being asked to suggest an alternative meaning for the four letters in Nama, the National Asset Management Agency. It's a timely competition given the focus on the agency last week; from Fine Gael and Labour, who both oppose it but would replace it in different ways, and from the National Treasury Management Agency which, it turns out, hasn't a clue – through no fault of its own – how its new sibling will operate. Not Always Managed Adequately might work, then. Or Not Another Moribund Agency. Need Another Minister, Apparently has its attractions as well.

We'd love to go on, but Mary Wilson's listeners can do the rest. So far they have been performing very well, recognising Nama for what it is: a concept born of panic which is swiftly emerging as one of the most dangerous and irresponsible ideas ever concocted by an Irish government. The problems with it are manifold: it is a gamble, akin to betting the country's future on a 200 to one shot at a race meeting; it places an unnecessary burden potentially on the taxpayer, innocent of any role in the avarice which brought Irish banks to their current state; it is correspondingly lenient on the international bond markets which funded the banks in their crazy lending practices in the first place.

Nobody is accusing Brian Lenihan, Brian Cowen and the Green/Fianna Fáil coalition of deliberately sabotaging the future of the country. But their Nama proposal has serious potential to do this. Of all the reasons to have a general election, the chance to get rid of Nama – tasked with buying €90bn of toxic property-related assets from the Irish banks – is perhaps the most important. Fine Gael's Richard Bruton acknowledged during the week that if Nama is established before the next election, then we are stuck with it, even if we have a FG/Lab government. "Governments are legally liable for the decisions made by past governments. It would be too late to change anything then," he said.

We are saddled for the forseeable future with the pension levy, the increased income levy, the health levy and all the other ways that the government will pick our pockets to pay for its mistakes and for the insatiable behaviour of banks and developers. Fury about the extra income levy should start to kick in with some vigour at the end of the month when people realise just how much of their salaries has been taken away. This will be just in time for the 5 June elections and should ensure that this weekend's poll results are borne out.

However, we are not yet stuck with Nama. The government seems in some doubt as to exactly how it will work, how many people will be needed to operate it, and how long it will take to complete its business. Certainly, Michael Somers of the National Treasury Management Agency – the bona fides of which are unchallenged, a rare enough achievement for an Irish financial body at the moment – would welcome some information. "We really have no feel yet for what will be involved," he said on Thursday.

While such cluelessness from the government about its new project is shocking, it is also strangely hopeful. Because as long as Nama is a plan rather than a reality, the possibility remains that it can be consigned to history. It will take a general election in the next few months, and a change of government, to do it. Nama, because of its potential to saddle Ireland with the kind of debt which today's toddlers will be paying off in three or four decades, should be the key issue in any such campaign.

Fine Gael and Labour have vastly different approaches to what would be better than Nama, which is a problem, obviously, although I'm sure they'll work their differences out when the time comes. Labour wants to nationalise the banks; Fine Gael prefers that taxpayers' money be spent on a new, clean, National Recovery Bank.

Us old lefties are supposed to favour nationalisation but Bruton's plan – though it still needs some fleshing out – strikes me as the more sensible way to go. Nationalisation in the current economic circumstances would mean that the taxpayer would become responsible for the banking losses – the ones we know about and the ones that still have to be uncovered – for many years to come. It's a bit like Nama in that regard.

And as there's Nothing As Mad As that plan, it should be avoided, if possible.

ddoyle@tribune.ie