COULD it have been a sweetheart deal? The International Monetary Fund says "we told you so" about Ireland's mighty bubble -- but then commends the Government for dealing firmly and speedily with the collapsed remains?

Well, I suppose that wouldn't really work. The looming presence of Brian Cowen figures in both governments, so there is not much scope for shifting blame to the previous administration -- even if that made sense with Fianna Fail in charge both times. Fine Gael believes it is mining a rich seam when it concentrates on it all being Fianna Fail's fault, while being a bit vague about whether they mean this government or the previous one.

All fair enough, but it does complicate political analysis. It does matter whether much of the disastrous showing of the government parties in the recent elections was anger at the Bertie administration for getting us into the mess, or anger at the Brian one for the things it is doing to try to get us out of it.

A bit of both, presumably, although the defenestration of the Greens suggests it is the current Government the voters wanted to clobber. The accusations stung Eamon Ryan enough for him to assert publicly that it certainly wasn't his fault.

But pure rage, even if nursed all the way to the into the next general election, does not matter so much for the economy's prospects. What does matter is the degree of actual resistance to the very unpleasant decisions which have to be taken over the next couple of years. On this, it is still a little early to say.

The really difficult decisions are not great sweeping tax changes, or vast bank rescues. It is the apparently little things: the willingness to tell a constituent that the bank refusing a loan for his troubled business really looks quite reasonable. Or, for instance, telling the Bus Eireann drivers where to get off.

In the wake of the IMF report, there was any amount of guff from Government, Opposition and business worthies about the need to cut government costs, to share the pain between the safely employed and the unemployed, to make the economy more competitive, and so on. Right on cue, comes the threat of industrial action at the state bus company over a cost-cutting plan; a threat which goes to core of what all those grand words might mean in practice.

Like most, state companies (and, alas, state hospitals), Bus Eireann is riven with restrictive practices. It employs some of the best-paid bus drivers in Europe, who work what may well be the shortest effective week. Previous agreements to cut costs here -- or at the ESB, An Post et cetera -- ended up raising costs in the end, as the compensation for promised changes is pocketed and the promises quickly broken.

Make no mistake about it, those fine words, whether from Fine Gael, the National Competitive Council or whomsoever, mean strikes -- probably bitter ones. That is what "reducing administered costs" means in practice, although nobody likes to say so in practice, still less in plain English.

From the Government's point of view, if there are going to be strikes, this is the right time to have them. With over 160,000 jobs gone in the past 12 months, it is surely impossible to defend industrial action by those whose jobs are secure to protect comfy arrangements which should never have been conceded in the first place.

Mr Cowen's instincts are for social partnership rather than confrontation. He would argue that it is impossible to get the kind of changes the country requires, in both incomes and productivity, by trying to force them on an unwilling workforce.

There is a good deal of truth in that. It would be much better to do it by agreement. The pleasant pay and conditions applying to drivers on the privatised buses of Stockholm city would do just fine. Likewise, the nurses of Finland or the teachers of Norway. One would be quite happy to have our trade union leaders embrace the Nordic model, instead of just eyeing her up and then slipping back to join the lads at the bar.

Whichever way it is done, the message must go out that it is no longer 1969. Almost all of Europe has moved on, and their way of doing things has been transformed in the past 30 years. Ireland's public administration is stuck in a time warp. It is a large part of the problem, when it should be driving the solutions.

To tell the truth, the IMF's "we told you so" was not that convincing. More convincing was the sense of unease running through the report. Despite their fearsome reputation, some of its directors thought the Irish Government measures might be too harsh for the economy to bear.

Just fixing the arithmetic of budget deficits and bank losses may not be enough. It must be done, as the IMF said, in a way which inspires confidence in the outcome and persuades people to join in the national effort, rather than protecting their own patch. If we could somehow get that with the bus drivers, we would be half-way there.

- Brendan Keenan