BRIAN LENIHAN is planning to announce today that he intends to continue on as Minister for Finance during his cancer treatment.
The Minister intends to make a personal statement addressing the issues that have arisen since news of his cancer diagnosis was broadcast on St Stephen’s Day.
Mr Lenihan is expected to detail the precise nature of his illness and to outline the course of treatment he will receive in the coming months.
Crucially, he will announce his intention of continuing on in the Finance portfolio and will tell the public how he intends to reduce his heavy workload to allow him to perform his duties.
It is expected that he will cut back significantly on his public appearances and will focus his attention on the main budgetary and financial issues facing his department.
It is understood that Mr Lenihan has discussed his plans with Taoiseach Brian Cowen who has encouraged him to stay on in office during his treatment.
The publication tomorrow of the exchequer returns for 2009 will illustrate the scale of the problem the Minister will continue to face in relation to the public finances.
The figures will show that the tax take for the year plummeted to €32.5 billion, the same level as in 2003, while Government spending was in the order of €56 billion.
The only positive aspect of the figures is that the fall in tax revenues appears to have bottomed out in the final months of 2009 and may even be slightly ahead of the estimates in last year’s budget.
Apart from the public finances, the other major issue facing Mr Lenihan is the future of the Irish banks as the impact of the Nama valuations become clear.
It now appears as if the writedown in the value of the loans to developers will be significantly greater than expected and will put the banks under pressure to raise more capital which will have a knock-on impact on the exchequer.
In his statement today Mr Lenihan is expected to express his gratitude to people all over the country who have been sending him messages of goodwill since reports of his ill-health became public.
Meanwhile, cancer specialist Prof John Crown defended his decision to appear as a contributor on the TV3 news bulletin on St Stephen’s Day which announced that Mr Lenihan had a specific form of cancer.
“TV3 contacted me on December 26th to tell me that they were going to report that a politician had been diagnosed with cancer and asked if I would be free to comment.
"I told them that I would not comment on the illness of any individual, but might consider doing an information piece about the type of cancer in question," Prof Crown wrote in yesterday's Sunday Independent.
He said that TV3 had later called him back to tell him Brian Lenihan had a particular form of cancer and he understood the Minister would be making a formal statement on the matter.
“I spoke in generalities, describing patients having disease which could either be ‘cured’ or ‘controlled’. I never mentioned the words ‘prognosis’ or ‘outlook’. I stressed the need to give up smoking, the single most important avoidable risk factor,” said Prof Crown.