It has become almost customary now to give the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, a free pass. In discussions on whether this government is the worst or the second-worst in Irish history (and that's the only choice on offer), it is often agreed that while you wouldn't leave Mary Coughlan or Noel Dempsey or Dermot Ahern in charge of a rabbit, never mind a dysfunctional economy, Lenihan is one of the good guys – somebody who knows what he is doing. No matter that Irish fiscal policy seems like it was dreamed up in headshops around the country, and should be outlawed with immediate effect, Lenihan, the chief pusher of these life-altering economic drugs, has been spared any serious blame.

Partly this has to do with the fact that he is fighting a brave personal battle against illness, in which all his political enemies and critics wish him well. Partly it is because he is, like most barristers, a plausible spoofer, trained to make any argument, no matter how deranged, seem credible to a jury. Partly it is to do with the culture of Fianna Fáil, where anybody who can string more than two sentences together is immediately marked out as University Challenge material. Partly it's because of a deep need in Irish people to feel that somebody in charge knows what they are doing. You don't get that impression from Brian Cowen or Coughlan or Dempsey or Ahern. All our low expectations have therefore brought us to a point where we have placed our hopes of recovery on the shoulders of one man.

To criticise Lenihan, then, is to doubt our own judgement. To rigorously analyse his performance and to conclude that, actually, things are worse than they were six months ago, is to acknowledge a reality that we are in no way comfortable with: the decline continues. And last week, the signs were everywhere.

Tuesday's exchequer figures, for example, showed that in the first two months of the year, tax revenue was down over €1bn on the same period in 2009. The deficit, at over €2.4bn, increased by €323m in a year. Income tax receipts were down. Corporation tax receipts were down. The interest payments on the national debt were €338m in February, almost double the figure for February 2010.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday came the news that unemployment had increased by 84,500 people since February last year – 436,956 are now on the live register. Also on Wednesday, figures from the Financial Regulator showed that house repossessions had risen by 20% between the third and fourth quarter of last year. Not to be outdone in the gloom stakes, the Central Statistics Office announced that retail sales declined by 17.3% in January compared to December and almost 5% compared to January last year. Last month's figures may not be much better when they come out – another survey last week showed that consumer confidence had declined sharply in February.

All of that is before you even begin to look at the banks, and the determination of Lenihan to reward them with taxpayers' money for their past and continuing incompetence, just as he announced last week that he would be rewarding pension companies for their appalling performance in recent years.

It's also before you consider the embarrassment of Lenihan's decision last year to invest €3.5bn each in AIB and BOI in return, he assured us, for an annual dividend of 8%, and more generous lending policies. But there will be no dividend, and loans are few. Instead, so far, all we have received in return for our generosity is a 15% share in BOI, and the prospect of nationalisation to come. Given that the €7bn was supposed to guarantee that the state would not have to take shares in the banks, Lenihan justly stands accused of gross incompetence in this area.

His real failure is that he was warned about the consequences of his economic policy, but chose to ignore all reservations. He was told that a wholly slash and burn approach to the crisis would make the crisis worse, and lead to the kinds of statistics with which we were bombarded for most of last week. (There was money available for a stimulus or a proper job creation policy, via the National Pensions Reserve Fund, but he gave that to the banks). But high on his own popularity in his party, drunk on unjustifiable self-belief, he went his own short-sighted way, and we are all now paying the consequences. That's Brian Lenihan's failure and Brian Lenihan's fault. Whatever sympathy or affection we feel for him on a personal level should not blind us to that obvious fact.

'Not right in the head': Who else but the greens?

Newstalk's Claire Byrne (below) was censured last week for describing Susan Boyle as a freak and not right in the head. Harsh words, no doubt, although if she'd used them in relation to SuBo's cousin Dan Boyle, she'd probably have got away with them. The truth is always a strong defence in these matters. Boyle's incontinent tweeting, Paul Gogarty's incessant bleating and John Gormley's incompetent leading have reduced the Greens to a laughing stock. Now comes the ridiculous debate over whether the Greens will start rotating themselves in and out of cabinet. Fianna Fáil has started to look like the least flaky of the parties in the government. When that happens, it's time for the junior coalition party to jump ship.

ddoyle@tribune.ie