Taoiseach Cowen - Let’s hope he’s another Lemass
As he has been told many, many times, he faces enormous challenges; a contracting economy, unemployment growing at a rate we had hoped consigned to history, a dysfunctional health system, an education system that does not deliver the world-class graduates we need, and a growing disquiet surrounding the Lisbon treaty.
In a challenge at least as great as any of those, Mr Cowen will also have to win the confidence of a population jaded by our political processes and deeply sceptical — too often justifiably so — of too many of our politicians. He must achieve this as an individual, as a party leader and as the figurehead of our democracy.
