Stakeholder

NOW that my heart has settled back into my chest from my throat the feel-good factor after Ireland’s historic Grand Slam win will carry me through the Monday morning blues of newspaper columns filled with bleak news about economic downturns, republican dissidents and liberals in search of a new cause.

The Saturday match was a timely

well-being tonic that Ireland Inc needed – even if it was administered by Brian O’Driscoll and not Brian Lenihan.

The game had the country on the edge of their seats. Even Mary, Queen of Ireland, couldn’t hold her composure sitting alongside Lieutenant William Wales.

Unlike half of the political events we encounter it truly was a historic moment.

Only rugby, Gaelic football and hurling seem able to provide such epic sporting moments. But if ever Ireland needed an injection of hope, Declan Kidney’s men provided it on Saturday. Wall space once reserved for pictures of Kennedy, the Pope and the Sacred Heart may now have to make room for the new trinity of O’Driscoll, O’Gara and O’Connell.

On Saturday even the dreadful made-up middle-class dirge of Ireland’s Call couldn’t dampen my spirits.

Amid the gloom and despondency that many commentators want to peddle, rugby gave us a timely reminder that we need hope too.

Obama sold hope by the barrelful in the USA and people believed. Yet even now, the Obama shine is wearing thin as parts of the country are losing faith.

Clearly, Obama senses that and no doubt the prospect of despondency infecting hope prompted his folksy presidential visits to town halls in places most affected by the recession and his celebrity appearance on the Jay Leno show.

Obama instinctively knows that no amount of stimulus packages or austerity measures can alone instil hope – hope has to be sold. Over the next few weeks Brian Cowen needs to take his message to the country. He and his cabinet need to sell not just the proposed recovery measures but a dose of hope too.

No-one likes taking medicine and of course prevention is always better than cure but Cowen has not only the intelligence for the job of taoiseach – he has the guts too. The Dublin rumour mill is rife with talk of his buckling under the pressure. Many say that neither he nor Brian Lenihan is coping well with the strains of office. Who knows? What we do know is that the country can ill afford a general election at this time – especially given the scale of problems faced by Ireland.

Naturally, the opposition is playing politics but it is a game of political roulette that may well endanger the national well-being. It’s the national interest that is now paramount. By playing politics, the opposition is feeding the unrealistic demands of the special interest groups who are protesting on the streets of Dublin.

Those special interest groups will eventually hold any Fine Gael/Labour government to ransom and it would not be long before the country returned to its banana republic economic antecedents.

When outlining their measures for economic recovery Cowen should consider throwing down the gauntlet to Fine Gael and Labour by inviting them to join a government of national unity.

These are unprecedented times and they call for unprecedented measures. More importantly it would test the depth of the opposition’s leadership and sincerity in full view of the Irish public.

It would at the very least get the carping monkeys off the government’s back.

One suspects that Fine Gael and Labour would run a mile from such a suggestion. They have been in ‘whinge and whine’ mode for so long. It’s difficult to see Labour’s Joan Burton selling hope from what appears to be her permanently dour expression.

Nevertheless, Cowen should consider throwing down the gauntlet of responsibility to the opposition.

After all, in the so-called ‘national’ interest of Northern Ireland, all southern parties bequeathed us a one-size-fits-all inclusive but involuntary coalition government.

Maybe now the sauce for the political goose in the north should be the same sauce for the southern gander.

The tiny country of Bhutan does not measure its success in terms of the normal economic measuring stick of gross domestic product. It prefers to have an index of ‘gross domestic happiness’ which is built on the well-being and success of the country’s social relationships. O’Driscoll and his lads gave us a measure of that on Saturday. Now it’s over to another Brian.