Lenihan comes last in ministerial survey

BRIAN LENIHAN has been ranked last in a major survey of European finance ministers for his performance over the past 12 months.

French finance minister Christine Legarde came first out of the 19 ministers ranked by the Financial Times (FT) in terms of their political skills and the performance of their economies.

Judges described Ms Lagarde as "a star among world financial policymakers", and said no other finance minister had come through such a testing year.

Erik Nielsen of Goldman Sachs praised Mr Lenihan for the bold measures that he had taken to address the country's economic and banking crisis. However, other judges were highly critical of what the FT referred to as "Ireland's go-it alone approach" in the immediate aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, which saw the Government introduce a bank guarantee.

Under the heading "Desperate in Dublin", the newspaper says Mr Lenihan's "drive to bring the economy back from the brink of catastrophe is an almighty test".

Earlier this year, Mr Lenihan met with the editorial board of the Financial Times as part of a visit to European capitals in an effort to restore Ireland's reputation among foreign investors.

The meeting came after the newspaper had been highly critical of the Government's economic policies.

Some of Europe's smallest countries were left out of the FT's rankings, leaving a total of 19 ministers to be judged.

Mr Lenihan was ranked 19th in the overall ratings and also came last in the individual economic category. He came in at 14th place in the political category, and 16th in the credibility poll. He came second last in the 2008 rankings.

Germany's finance minister until the recent election, Peer Steinbruck, was voted second, with Belgium's Didier Reynders in third place. Anders Borg of Sweden came fourth, followed by Giulio Tremonti of Italy.

Britain's Alistair Darling came seventh.