SPINELESS, witless and "ball-less". Three words that could only have come from one man in describing the Government's efforts to manage the economy.

Michael O'Leary is railing against Brian Lenihan's stubborn refusal to scrap the €10 travel tax he introduced in his last "emergency Budget".

The new levy may have only kicked in last April, but it's already hitting tourist numbers, and more importantly for Mr O'Leary, the Ryanair bottom line.

Not surprisingly, the Ryanair chief doesn't like it one bit.

Last Wednesday, he wrote to Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and Transport Minister Noel Dempsey to let them know just how much the tax is hurting business. But he doesn't expect to hear back from them anytime soon, he says.

Asked why he didn't copy the letter to Tanaiste Mary Coughlan (she is after all the minister responsible for enterprise and employment), Mr O'Leary swats the question away.

"Because it wouldn't occur to me. Look, you're talking here about transport and finance. So we write to Finance, Transport and to the Taoiseach's office. You know, I'm not writing to anybody else. I'm not writing to Hanafin either," he snorts derisively.

And what about writing to the minister responsible for tourism, Martin Cullen? Why not write to him?

"No. He's irrelevant," Mr O'Leary says bluntly.

While the aviation entrepreneur doesn't expect the present incumbents in Government Buildings to do anything on the travel tax front, he is more optimistic that Fine Gael will whenever they get into power.

And according to Mr O'Leary, that could happen before this year is over.

"I think there's every likelihood that this Government will not survive this calendar year. I think the Budget, the way they're going with the Budget in the autumn will be very difficult again. And the Government has shown itself to be incapable of making decisions."

And just in case anybody doesn't agree with that point, Mr O'Leary cites the ongoing controversy over ministerial pensions as just the latest example of what he sees as the Government's inability to bring a decision to fruition.

"I mean the announcement that instead of cutting or scrapping the (ministerial) pensions for serving politicians, they're going to cut them by 25 per cent. It's a waste of bloody time. It just looks not alone spineless, but witless and ballsless. Why the Government didn't just publish the list of politicians and let the newspapers ask them were they willing to hand over (the pension payments).

"The Government is there wasting time when there are serious financial matters to be dealt with, farting around trying to get the Bertie Aherns of this world to hand over 25 per cent of their pensions that they shouldn't get given as they are still serving politicians. The Government is just incapable to my mind, incapable of taking decisions. This was something that Lenihan announced in the Budget, and here we are six months later, and not only have they not delivered it, they've only delivered 25 per cent of it."

So is the inertia in government or in the civil service that supports it?

"I have absolutely no doubt that the biggest problem with this Government is that it has been in power for so long that the civil servants are running the country, which is why it is being mismanaged," Mr O'Leary says.

Taking the department that his airline deals with most frequently, the Department of Transport, as a case in point, he adds: "Look at the quality of the civil service in the Department of Transport. There is no talent or ability there whatsoever. Everything they run from Aer Lingus to the Dublin Airport Authority to CIE to Bus Eireann; it's a shambles. It is a politically incompetent administration incapable of running anything in the consumer interest. The department runs these bodies to protect the vested interests of the trade unions and trade union workers."

Given his view that civil servants are running the country, is the Ryanair boss fearful that the upcoming budget will hurt the tourism industry and airline business even more?

"I fear the whole weight of stupidity in the civil service and within the Department of Finance at the moment, and within a lot of the media commentary which consists of 'let's increase taxation as a way out of a recession'. We tried that in the Seventies and it failed. We tried it in the Eighties and it failed and in the Sixties. It's always failed.

"The only way out of the mess this country is in is to radically cut the waste in public expenditure and reduce taxation. Not on rich people like me. Increase taxation on the rich, there's so few of them who are resident, it doesn't f***ing matter anyway. But you must reduce taxation on middle Ireland," he says.

When it comes to finding the money the country so desperately needs, his advice is, as he puts it, "very simple".

"This Government, what they should do, is set out a plan to take about five to 10 billion of spending out of the public sector and face up to hard decisions. But they should then reduce the standard or middle rate of tax for ordinary PAYE workers and say to everybody: 'Look, we are cutting back spending, we are closing quangos, but we're going to give it back to you in the form of lower taxation'. It's very simple," he says.

Back to the most pressing subject for him and for Ryanair, that of the €10 travel tax; and Mr O'Leary is equally clear.

"This tax generates no revenues, but it is having a massively damaging impact on tourism in Ireland.

"And who says so? Europe's largest airline. You may not like Ryanair, but we are Europe's largest airline, and if we say we're going to cut flights and routes, you better listen to us, because we will.

"If we say we'll reverse these cuts if you scrap this stupid tax, then listen to us for God's sake, because we will."

Mr O'Leary's pessimism when it comes to the Government's stubborn refusal to scrap the travel tax would appear to have some genuine foundations -- given the Commission for Aviation Regulation's announcement last Thursday that it was giving the go-ahead to a €1 increase in airport charges from €7.39 per person to €8.35 beginning in January 2010.

Ryanair's official response to that latest government move was similarly blunt, with an airline spokesman saying the move proved "that Ireland's aviation regulator is useless".

One thing Michael O'Leary insists he won't do is make a third bid for Aer Lingus.

But he is glad to see that The Irish Times agreed in an editorial last month with his view that the ailing former state carrier "needs" a strong partner.

Asked if he cared for what the so-called paper of record thought, Mr O'Leary says: "Generally, no. But we'll take support for our strategy wherever we can find it, even if it comes from The Irish Times. Not to be facetious, but The Irish Times would not be one of the more pro-business newspapers -- but even they have managed to analyse the fact that Aer Lingus simply can't survive on its own, as a small, sub-scale, peripheral airline in Europe. The only people who haven't understood this fact are the board of Aer Lingus."

So what future does the former state carrier have then?

"I think sadly what's more likely to happen over the next two or three years is that Aer Lingus will get into financial trouble and there will need to be a financial rescue put in place.

"We could participate in a financial rescue of Aer Lingus -- but I don't believe we will launch a third bid for it," he says.

- RONALD QUINLAN