THE big story of the weekend here was the appearance of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen on the Late Late Show, the most popular TV program in Ireland and the longest-running chat show in the world.

It was big for two reasons. It was the first show of the new Late Late season and it was being fronted by a new presenter, Ryan Tubridy.

Changing the Late Late Show host is an even bigger deal than the election of a new Pope. So the whole country was tuned in to see how Tubridy, a rising young star in RTE who used to have his own show, would get on.

The other reason, of course, was because the first guest on the show was to be our beleaguered taoiseach. Beset on all sides by problems and faced with a catastrophic fall in support in the opinion polls, Cowen needed to perform well because the whole country would be watching. Could he offer us any real hope for the future?

Cross between Letterman and O'Brien

Tubridy sees himself as a cross between David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. He's all fast talk and wise cracks, with a jazzy house band and an American chat show set. He's good with B-list celebs and light topics. So getting the big gig, the Late Late, presented him with a problem since the show has always mixed very serious topics with lighter material.

Tubridy obviously thought he had to prove himself by giving Cowen a hard time. So he machine-gunned him with questions, talking so fast and interjecting so much that Cowen had no chance to answer properly.

Tubridy was like a high school debater with verbal diarrhea, smarmy, insolent and manic. Cowen looked frustrated as he struggled to get enough space in the barrage to explain his solutions to the complex problems facing the country.

Verbal assault

Tubridy's verbal assault made most uncomfortable viewing and in the end was fruitless. With three quarters of a million people watching, he should have given Cowen time to put his case. His failure to do so was a missed opportunity and showed he still has a lot to learn.

What Cowen did manage to say was that he sees the next 100 days as critical for the future of his government and the country. He listed the three big challenges he faces in the next 100 days -- getting the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) up and running to save the banks, getting the Lisbon Treaty passed in the upcoming referendum to protect our place in Europe, and getting what will be the toughest Budget ever through the Dail (Parliament) to get our state finances under control again.

The latest opinion poll, in The Irish Times last week, showed just how difficult that is going to be, because Cowen’s support is collapsing and with it his authority. The poll showed that support for Fianna Fail had slipped to a record low of 17%, half that of Fine Gael on 34% and even behind Labor on 24%.

Disastrous poll result

This was an absolutely disastrous poll result for Fianna Fail and showed that the present coalition government between Fianna Fail and the Greens (on 3%), supported by a few independents, is trailing far behind an alternative coalition of Fine Gael and Labor. Fianna Fail, for decades the biggest and most powerful political party in Ireland, is in freefall.

They have no option but to hang in there for as long as possible. An election now would wipe out half their Dail seats, reducing them to the minor party role traditionally played by Labor. So they might as well get on with it and try to face the challenges that are coming down the tracks in the next 100 days, as Cowen said.

What Cowen did not say, of course, is that in a way being so unpopular is kind of liberating. Fianna Fail has almost nothing left to lose, so they might as well rediscover their conscience and their patriotic duty and do the right thing for the country.

In his quiet and dignified answers to Tubridy's overheated questioning, that was what Cowen was saying. It's going to be tough and it's going to make him even more unpopular, but he's going to do what he thinks is necessary to get the country back on the right path again.

Humility

Cowen also showed a degree of humility in what he said. He seems open to making adjustments to NAMA -- the national bad bank being set up to buy in the bad property loans currently killing the Irish banks -- but he clearly sees NAMA as the only real solution to the problem we face.

It's an impossible sell because it is seen by most ordinary people as an attempt to bail out the bankers and builders who got us into the mess in the first place. But NAMA or something like it has to be introduced if the Irish banks are to avoid going bust and are to begin lending again so that the economy can start functioning.

Critical to getting public acceptance of NAMA will be the discount at which it buys in the bad loans from the banks, something that the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will be revealing next week. Fine Gael and Labor have contradictory and unclear solutions to the banking crisis here, only agreeing on their opposition to NAMA. Yet this lack of clarity on the most serious question facing the country has not damaged them in the polls.

Fine Gael is now unquestionably the biggest party in the country, based on several recent polls. The reason is that the public identifies the bankers and builders with Fianna Fail and the public wants revenge, not NAMA, which it interprets as a rescue plan for multi-millionaire developers. It is punishing Fianna Fail for letting the mess accumulate in the first place, and for failing now to hit those responsible.

Slap in the face

On Lisbon, even though a yes vote in the referendum is supported by all the main parties, there is a real possibility that the public will use that vote to give a further wake-up slap in the face to the government. There is such anger out there that even though such a decision would be disastrous for the country at the very time we need the protection of the European Central Bank most, it is possible.

A defeat for the referendum might make it impossible for Cowen to stay on as taoiseach, although as he says, he is not contemplating defeat. And if he can keep his own party united behind him and keep Green Party support, he might last the two and a half years he has left before he must face the electorate in a general election.

The other reason that people are so angry -- the third challenge facing Cowen in the next 100 days -- is the budget in three months. People know the next budget is going to have huge cutbacks as the minister slashes state spending to get it more in line with our declining tax revenue.

The gap is huge -- around one-third of all state spending here now has to be borrowed -- and it will take several years to get the deficit back to a level that will not make us a bankrupt country. But a serious start has to be made this year, and Cowen emphasized in his interview that there would be major cutbacks across the board in the budget.

Room for improvement

There is limited scope for increased taxation, given the depressed state of the economy and the already high tax burden that everyone bears. But there is room for improvement in the tax system, and this Monday the long awaited report of the Commission on Taxation was at last published.

Some of the proposals in the 590-page report are dramatic, although most were expected. The recommendations include a property tax on all residences, making the generous state benefits paid to all families with children taxable, a possible third level of income tax and new rules for the super rich Irish who reside outside the country for tax reasons.

We will be examining these proposals in detail in this column in the coming weeks. Certainly the Irish tax system is badly in need of reform -- at the moment it's a confusing mess of rates, rules, additions and exceptions that have accumulated over the years as changes were made in each annual budget.

But at this stage it is important to remember that the proposals from the commission are just proposals. It is up to the government to decide which ones will be implemented, how much will be included in the December budget and at what rates.

One thing is sure: the next 100 days here will be a time to remember. What we do in the next 100 days will determine whether Ireland survives as a progressive, well-off country, or slides back towards the depressed, dreary days of the 1950s when our biggest export was people. Cowen has a heavy responsibility.