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.

He steps into shoes, that in his 24 years in the Dáil, have been filled by three men who have, each in their turn, been forced to leave office when their integrity was compromised in the quagmire where money and politics meet.

History shows us that great change can be initiated from the most unlikely and unexpected of sources; that individuals step forward and make a fundamental difference to their society — Gorbachev in the old Soviet Union, de Klerk and Mandela in the old South Africa, Seán Lemass, who started to turn the old Ireland into the new Ireland. Is it too much to hope that Brian Cowen could be such a person?

Is it too fanciful to hope that he might actually do more than give lip service to the expectation of high standards in high places? Is it too fanciful to hope that his announcements on badly needed public sector reform will be made real?

Mr Cowen has established a robust independence and, for the moment at least, is unchallengeable as leader of Fianna Fáil.

Though materialism and greed have assumed too much influence in our society, the vast majority of Irish people would gladly support fair, honest and imaginative leadership. Indeed the vast majority would cheer from the rooftops if we had a political leader who confronted the institutionalised corruption and gombeenism that stand between this country and the prospect of becoming a progressive and successful European society.

The opportunities facing Mr Cowen are as great as the challenges and though he may not have the resources to buy his way out of trouble as his predecessor did, he has something else at least as valuable — he carries the hopes of a society weary of ambiguity, a society sick to the core of smoke and mirrors and a society that wants a political process that is effective and honest, imaginative and progressive. If Mr Cowen pursues that agenda he will have the support of everyone who cares about this country.

Let us all wish him well and let us all hope he has the courage to accept that great challenge.