Cowen looks to Lemass as he lays out vision of future

ANALYSIS: The new public face of Brian Cowen was on show for the first time yesterday, writes Mark Hennessey.

ANALYSIS:The new public face of Brian Cowen was on show for the first time yesterday, writes Mark Hennessey.

FOR YEARS, most of the public has seen Brian Cowen as Mr Grumpy. Yesterday, he put forward a new public face: softly-spoken, gentle, statesmanlike, but quietly tough.

His first outing as Fianna Fáil leader-designate was a triumph, laying out the first chapters of his leadership to come, while respecting current office-holder Bertie Ahern.

Through it all, he spoke of words not often heard in Ireland outside of the realm of "the fourth green field" and bar-room republicans: patriotism, duty and service to one's country.

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The benchmark for Cowen is not Ahern, even if he mentioned him frequently, but Seán Lemass, and in particular, the Lemass of the 1960s, the visionary technocrat.

If backed up by actions, a Cowen-led government - one that has a minimum of four years to make its mark - should offer a very different perspective to that presented during the Ahern era.

In style, it will be quieter, with less of the celebrity-focus brought to it by Ahern, who built a significant part of his success on making his own life a soap opera for the public.

Though he has been left a united party by Ahern, Cowen faces major troubles on the economy, unemployment, the Lisbon Treaty and, crucially, the sclerotic public services.

For over a decade, Ahern worked in partnership with trade unions in a deal that delivered industrial peace, but not reform on the scale needed.

Change has been bought and often bought dearly. Now, change must continue, and accelerate and not be bought by a Government happy until now to sign cheques to stave off trouble rather than take hard decisions.

Cowen insists that the public service status quo cannot be sustained, and that change must come, but by agreement, not conflict. Indeed, he makes the point that the unions have already accepted it under Towards 2016.

Quick to declare full support for Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney, Cowen ended any speculation - the little there was - that she will be moved next month.

Her actions were taken with the agreement of the Cabinet, and "in compliance" with Government policy, he told journalists.

In fact, Cowen, who is not popular with many in the health services from his time in the Department of Health, went further, and questioned the motives of some of those opposing the HSE.

Many of the HSE's "critics are, in fact, using their criticism as a ruse to maintain the status quo", he declared in strong words softly spoken.

Making it clear that there will be no changes to any of the hospital reforms currently under way, he warned that "parochial arguments" could not override patient care.

However, it is not clear, and it may not become clear for a long time, what Cowen will do in the face of wilful obstructionism.

Will he just talk or will he bark? Will he, if necessary, bite?

Throughout his career, Cowen has always been the quintessential Fianna Fáil loyalist; once dismissive of junior coalition partners, contemptuous of enemies. However, he has learned, or he wants us to believe he has learned, at the feet of a master how to make coalitions work.

Asked yesterday if Fianna Fáil could secure an overall majority - once the holy grail of the party's ambitions - Cowen seemed to indicate that while it would be nice, it did not matter very much.

Coalitions are where politics are at for the years ahead and Cowen seems intent for now on not being the man to wreck Fianna Fáil's reputation as a partner - one that could keep it in power for years to come. However, junior Coalition partners should not look for too much after his litany of compliments to Labour's Eamon Gilmore in recent months.

The tactic fulfils a number of objectives: it makes the Greens and PDs nervous and therefore more acquiescent; and it damages Enda Kenny's ability to put forward an image of a "government-in-waiting".

For anyone listening closely to Cowen yesterday for the first time, he would have presented an attractive image - one that is closer to the reality than his public image.

Uncomfortable with applause and anxious to get away from television cameras, Cowen has not lost touch with his roots or background and is less ego-driven than most in politics.

But even his constituency of Laois/Offaly was given a polite warning not to have an undue sense of entitlement or to take advantage of him or the office he will occupy in a month. "They will also know that in taking up this job that my responsibilities are national and that my responsibilities are to all the people of Ireland," he told a local radio reporter.

The same message, perhaps, needs to be heard, and may have already been heard by some of those who have been his closest friends in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party over the decades.

Yesterday, some of them were ushered to seats at the front at his press conference. For some, it is a sign of preferment to come. For others, it is all they will get, but, perhaps, not all they will expect.

The softer image will be key. Cowen is a thoughtful, intelligent man, for the most part in private, but he can be a bruiser, particularly when faced with those he believes are not his intellectual equals. The political difficulty is that while men might find his demolition of enemies attractive in a pugilistic sort of way, the majority of women do not, and are not likely to be any more forgiving of such conduct from him as Taoiseach.

And Cowen is going to have to become more attractive to women voters if Fianna Fáil is to thrive. Ahern will be a hard act to follow with female voters.

Finally, the office of taoiseach will force changes on the lifestyle of a man who is social, blessed with the constitution of an ox and enjoys a drink or two.

So far, he has twice sought to set the bar as high as possible for journalists who might try to pry into his private life and that of his family. Cowen, however, knows that such a request will go unheard in some media quarters.

The image of a taoiseach, seen frequently in print with a pint in hand, may meet with a public smile for a time, if not forever, but it is better not to give ground to those who might exploit it.

Cowen is careful to obey the proprieties and not to talk as if he is taoiseach until he takes over on May 7th and forms his government after he receives his seal of office from President Mary McAleese. In the meantime, he will pay all due respect to Bertie Ahern, who is thanked by his Fianna Fáil colleagues for what he did as leader, but, if they were honest, most particularly for choosing to go when he did.

In the cruel way that will mark the passing of this political leader, even if it does include a US Houses of Congress speech, Ahern will appear as a man increasingly forgotten but not yet gone in the month ahead.