Kenny's job to steer team effort in hard times ahead

Enda Kenny has been no overnight success, with 35 years in the Dail (Parliament) behind him and with many voters still wondering whether he has the required qualities to pull Ireland out of its deep financial mess.

The same goes for his Fine Gael party senior colleagues: most of his front bench came out against him during an attempt to oust him last June.

But Kenny faced down that challenge and has just convinced enough people on the doorsteps that he is what the Irish call the dog for the long road.

Now he faces a far greater challenge, that of turning the tide in a country which is financially and psychologically depressed.

Electoral arithmetic and the mood of the country dictate that he must form a coalition with the Irish Labour Party, with himself as Taoiseach and Labour's leader, Eamon Gilmore, as his deputy.

In the campaign they were rivals but now, in the Irish way, they will get down to the horse-trading that generally lasts for weeks before producing a coalition.

This election is producing a new Government, but it will take years to overcome the economic difficulties. And it will not put an end to the spectacle of tearful farewells in airport departure lounges, as parents hug children who are moving thousands of kilometres away.

The sadness of saying goodbye is accompanied by a sense of shame that modern Ireland has proved unable to run its own affairs. Having once excited envy and admiration, it now attracts sympathy and even pity.

Previous waves of emigration were largely made up of the working class, but today highly educated young people are going in a brain drain that will make eventual recovery all the more difficult.

According to Martin Murphy, head of Hewlett-Packard in Ireland: "We have invested hundreds of millions of euros educating these graduates, but we will lose thousands of them to Australia, New Zealand and Canada."

It is a new Irish diaspora, a vote of no confidence in the old country.

There is little sympathy for Fianna Fail. The figures show well over 80 per cent of voters blame Ireland's troubles on a party that fuelled a crazy property boom. The anti-Fianna Fail narrative is straightforward: it helped its cronies - builders, bankers and developers - make vast amounts of money, failed to regulate the banks, the banks went bust and the country went bust too.

In Ireland it is the fervent wish of many to see bankers behind bars.

The most urgent task for the new Administration is to end the sense that the economy is in freefall. It will be a new Government but not a new dawn, for hard times lie ahead. In the words of Michael Noonan, a Fine Gael economic heavyweight: "It's going to be dreadful."

One of the main reasons for the party's advance was its team effort. It played down the cult of personality. It also played down any suggestion it had instant solutions to the economic woes.

Between them in the Dail, centre-right Fine Gael and Labour have much of the available experience and expertise.

Kenny's job will be to steer the team in building a more stable economy.

- Independent