... He requires skills in the areas of finance, business, banking and economics. He should have a high level of numeracy and analytic abilities. He should be able anticipate the economic and financial effects of his decisions. In all these areas he, in my opinion, has demonstrated fatal weakness...
I honestly believe that comments like these betray a lack of insight into how government works.
Lenihan is supposed to have his officials to do the number crunching - that's what civil servants are for, or at least that's what they are being very well paid to do. Why have a dog and bark yourself?
I never voted for any prospective TD based on his/her ability to add or subtract, to analyse a balance sheet or annual report; the bean counters. economists and data analysts are in the Department of Finance, at Briano's beck and call. "Analyse this", quoth Briano. "Yes, Minister", respondeth a chorus of lackeys, civilly, diving for their networked PDAs (or quills and ledgers if they are there a while).
Briano's job as a senior member of Cabinet is to deliver the headlines, then wheel in the bean-counters and have them quizzed by Biffo & Co regarding the detail of the underlyings, the trends and the recommendations.
Cabinet decisions are made collectively (no finger-pointing afterwards) and delivered by The Boss (unless they are spectacularly unpalletable), having been massaged and codified by the "fondlers" (who are paid even more than the bean-counters).
If Briano's (or the Cabinet's) decisions appear poor in retrospect, it is hardly due to him being numerically challenged - rumour has it that lawyers can even do sums; the more likely reason is that he and they were being given garbage by their officials, and hung out to dry by the regulatory bodies - good, old-fashioned GIGO syndrome.
And no I'm not a FF'er nor am I a fan of the Lenihan dynasty.