LET'S open two official documents and see what they tell us. Then, let's consider the recent behaviour of the Taoiseach and some of his ministers.

From this, I believe, we could reach the rather chilling conclusion that this Government is as incompetent as the disastrous Cowen regime of 2008-2011. Personally, on the evidence, I'm wondering if the Taoiseach is just plain mad. Consider the following.

The first document is the Finance Bill 2012. Specifically, Section 14 thereof. The "Special Assignee Relief Programme". Sounds like a desperate measure to ease the pain of some poor unfortunate, doesn't it? Well, not so much.

It's the legislation that gives a special tax break to Top People (executives and the like) who come here and earn up to half a million euro a year. The logic is that bribing such people might allegedly "bring jobs to this country", though the Government gives no evidence to that effect. And, crucially, the legislation provides no trade-off between creating jobs and getting the tax relief.

I thought it might be worthwhile looking at the detail. Section 14 says that 30 per cent of the salary of any such Top Person will be exempt from tax. For up to five years. (This is on top of the usual loopholes that enable rich people to pay less tax than their income merits.)

Now, let's go to sub-section 6, paragraph A. There, the Top Person gets another tax break for an annual return trip to wherever he or she came from, along with his or her spouse or civil partner and a child. How thoughtful. And guess what paragraph B says? It says we get to subsidise the private schooling of this Top Person's kids, for up to €5,000 per kid, per year.

In a country laid waste by austerity, we find that someone thought up the notion of giving "super junior ministers" an extra €17,000, on top of their €130,000 salaries. We find Enda Kenny is paid more than David Cameron, and Michael Noonan is paid more than his US equivalent, Tim Geithner.

And we find the new Finance Bill provides relief for judges. (The poor bewigged ones recently protested that the private pension pots they built up as overpaid barristers were under threat from severe taxation.) And, now we have new tax breaks for big earners who come here, subsidised annual vacations and subsidised education for their kids.

We're in the age of austerity. And austerity really, really hurts. Right across this country, people watch their income dwindle, their services shrivel, the small luxuries evaporate, the necessities sometimes beyond reach. The most vulnerable suffer most. And when the top layers are threatened with actual pain, the Government comes running with cushions.

I switched on the radio and there was Brian Hayes, junior minister, explaining that they can't know how many jobs the Special Relief for Important People will create -- if any. But, says Brian, "if it works it works, if it doesn't it doesn't". And the "total exposure" is €5m.

Brian said that three times, like €5m is small change. Then I opened the Department of Finance document summarising budget changes, and found that €5m is more than the cuts to the School Completion Programme and the Family Support Agency, combined. It's more than twice the increase to research and development, a job support measure.

Brian Hayes seemed to suggest the "total exposure" of this new programme of bribing Top People is €5m, over three years. Not really. The summary document tells me it's €5m a year for five years, totalling €25m. To recoup that money, €24.6m is cut from school capitation grants to 2015, and the teaching of modern languages in primary schools is abolished.

So, okay, we might disagree with the "austerity for some" policy of the government. That doesn't make them as incompetent as Cowen's lot, nor does it mean the Taoiseach is mad. Let's proceed.

The Taoiseach appears to say whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear. Thus, he told us, "You are not to blame" for the recession. Like an adult reassuring a worried child during a marital break-up. At Davos, speaking to an international audience, he portrayed us as "mad".

Last Sunday, he suddenly announced that "our government have in place transitional teams", to deal with the mass retirements from the public service. For a long time he didn't seem to be taking the problem seriously -- sure, there's retirements every year. Then, it seemed to hit him that health, education and security are about to lose a vast cache of experienced leaders. These "transitional teams", he said, are at work in the crucial areas.

Last Tuesday, in the Dail, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter was asked to confirm there was such a team in his department. He couldn't. The Taoiseach shortly afterwards conceded there were no teams. "It will come before Cabinet next Tuesday."

Why hadn't they set up these teams before? They had to wait, Mr Kenny said, for the final figures on how many would retire. This is nonsense. It was known for months there would be thousands retiring before the end of February -- an unprecedented disruption. The precise figures weren't needed in order to prepare.

Then, it turned bizarre. On Thursday, in the Seanad, with his usual charm, Minister Brian Hayes said, "the transition teams are in place". In fact, "Since the autumn, we have been working on these teams. They have been putting together plans."

In the space of five days we were told these mysterious teams were "in place", that they hadn't yet been created and they'd been at work since last autumn. This is madness.

And it isn't a one-off.

Vincent Browne, on his TV3 show a couple of weeks back, showed video of the Taoiseach saying that his Government, "have not looked for any write-off and will not look for any write-off" of debt. Browne asked Minister Lucinda Creighton about this. She stated frankly, "The Government did seek a write-down." She was right.

Last June, that was government policy. Michael Noonan repeatedly said of the banking debts, "We don't think the Irish taxpayer should redeem what has become speculative investment." Then he was told by the ECB to shut the hell up, and did.

Creighton told Browne that Michael Noonan met with Jean-Claude Trichet, of the ECB, and with the IMF, "and there certainly was discussion of a write-down".

Last week the Taoiseach toddled around America, telling all that this never happened. His Government has not and will not seek a write-down on "our debts". Leave aside the fact that these are not our debts, they are the debts of Sean FitzPatrick and other bankers and gamblers in Ireland, Germany and France. Even if they were our legitimate debts, writing down crushing debt is a standard route to solvency.

And why deny what others know is true?

If there's a sane strategy behind this, it doesn't appear to have been conveyed to Ms Creighton, whose job it is to discuss these matters with "our European partners". The glaring possibility is that there's no strategy. It is what it looks like. A Taoiseach in love with his role, out to please, publicly giggling with delight when Nicky Sarkozy tickles his neck.

I'm scared.

Originally published in