Taoiseach Cowen - Let’s hope he’s another Lemass

IF ALL goes according to script, and there is no reason to imagine it will not, Brian Cowen will be elected taoiseach this afternoon.

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.