The spokesman went on to explain that this new sort of leader was just what Ireland needed right now, “someone that they can project their hopes and fears onto, someone that will never contradict their idea of who he is or what he stands for, a sort of modern everyman. Fine Gael are taking a stand against the personality politics of the past.” Following on from this new strategy, a new Fine Gael poster is to be launched next week featuring a dark silhouette instead of the party leader’s face with the slogan, ‘Facing the Future.’

Mr Kenny is reported to be holidaying with his family in Rome and is not expected back in the country until well after the election.

Fresh from victory in Tuesday’s confidence vote Cowen sought the resignation of six ministers with experience in order to replace them with little known party members. Jocularly claiming that “you can’t run a party on the basis of public perception,” Mr Cowen planned to comprehensively alienate the Irish public with this move. However, to his dismay, the Green Party vetoed the plan. Speaking to reporters after a noisy Dail session yesterday afternoon, Mr Cowen said that it seemed hugely ironic to him that just two days after receiving a mandate from his own party to continue destroying it, he now found himself prevented from doing so by his coalition partners: ‘Surely they want Fianna Fail annihilated just as much as I do.”

However, all may not be lost for Mr Cowen’s project as seven of the remaining fifteen Fianna Fail voters in the country have now indicated that they will not be voting for Fianna Fail in the imminent election.  Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was not available for comment last night but was said by a senior adviser to be gutted at how Mr Cowen had effortlessly surpassed his capacity for self-destruction.

Separately, Reuters reports that the IMF today were said to be preparing an emergency tranche of funding to cover the necessary, severance, bonus and pension payments due to retiring Fianna Fail Ministers.

He described the €85 billion rescue package agreed with the EU and the IMF as the best programme “to preserve the medium and long-term stability and prosperity of Germany and France”.

“These times are obviously very difficult. They’re coming after times that were very, very good and affluent of course and now adjustment has to operate, reparations must be made.” Mr Trichet told reporters yesterday.

“I am confident that the Irish people who realise that it is extremely important to be for the long run insolvent and to prove what they have always proved in the past – namely that they are incapable of self-governance.”

Asked whether the ECB forced Ireland into taking a bailout, Mr Trichet grinned and  insisted that it was the former Government’s decision to request the aid package.

“Perhaps now the Irish will realise that it was

not a good idea to send a turkey to the Eurovision.”

The “former republic”  had discussed the country’s financial position with the international community and Ireland’s European “partners” had concluded that it was “necessary to engage in this adjustment”.

The success of the EU-IMF programme would depend on the Irish people and the Vichy Government continuing to show that they can implement the plan “in a good fashion. If credibility comes back, then everything will be very easy,” he said. He admitted that this was, of course, “extremely unlikely” but explained that this was unimportant as the plan for Ireland would benefit the euro area.

To the amusement of  the assembled press corps, he insisted, “The Euro as a currency is very credible and very stable.”

Reassuring Irish depositors, he said that was a “serious” plan to ensure that they had no savings left long before the “inevitable default and expulsion of Ireland from the Eurozone”.

Asked if the ECB had stopped funding the banks in September and October, leading them to borrow from the Irish Central Bank, and thus precipitating the crisis, he said, “Perhaps now the Irish will realise that it was not a good idea to send a turkey to the Eurovision.”

Yesterday, the ECB bought government bonds, including Irish debt of more than €100 million, in its biggest intervention since May to prop up the euro bond markets. When it was pointed out to Mr Trichet that if the ECB had engaged in buying of Irish government bonds in October and November there would have no no crisis for Irish debt, he replied, ‘Ah the penny is dropping in Ireland!  In less than six weeks we have achieved what the British failed to do over centuries — the total subjugation of the Irish. Turkeys, Christmas — I think you can work it out!’

He concluded by saying that the ECB welcomed the Vichy Government’s commitment to “take any further measures that may be appropriate” to achieve the objectives of the ECB.

“This convincing progression through to the finals of the Eurovision, together with the likelihood that Ronan Keating will get back with Yvonne, plus the recent sunny weather are proof, if more were needed, that Ireland’s economy has turned the corner.”

Speaking to reporters at a press conference to celebrate the win, Mr Cowen elaborated on his statement, “This was not easy, it involved pain and picking a song to represent us at Eurovision involved difficult choices that were the key to recovery. The Eurovision crisis in Ireland has damaged the livelihoods of our citizens. It has damaged our standing abroad. The irresponsible actions of music managers such as Louis Walsh has tarnished our international reputation and John Waters almost single-handedly crashed the entire European project. But we are determined to allow the law to take its course and arrests are expected in the coming months.”

A Department of Finance official was quick to emphasise that a year ago, “Ireland was labelled as just another member of a group of countries which was facing serious trouble making the grade in the Eurovision. Today we are held up as an example and people are talking about our resolve and capacity to deal with problems and to get through the semi final process at European level.”

Later, in Tullamore to perform a concert, a leather-clad Mr Cowen had this to say: “2FM has predicted that growth will return to the economy in the second half of this year and Larry Gogan is predicting that Ireland will grow at double the Eurozone average next year. Even the X Factor did auditions in Dublin earlier this month, further proof that international confidence is returning.”

After a heartfelt rendition of Pretty Vacant, Mr Cowen thrilled the crowd with a speech where, his voice hoarse with emotion, he said, “The Government’s entire economic strategy is about sustaining and creating music – as we set out in our Framework for Economic Renewal: Building Ireland’s Music Economy. We are positioning Ireland as a global recording studio  – the best place to start, grow and transform pop bands both multinational and Irish. This will lay the foundations for future chart success. We are developing opportunities in the green economy with renewable songs and clean lyrics. We are spending, proportionately, the highest amount in the EU on drum and bass to support the economy and to support jobs.

The only negative note was sounded by pop economist Mr David McWilliams who has called for Ireland to leave the Eurovision and create an independent song contest. Citing his time as an international DJ, he claims that only such radical action as this can ensure that we actually win a song contest.  “A government that doesn’t control its own pop policy is inevitably going to have to default on its debts – it’s just a matter of when.

However, world music charts have responded favourably to the ‘win’ and Ireland’s ten-year sovereign borrowing premium against Germany dropped back to below 135 BPM. Purchasing managers across CD retail and manufacturing have increased orders and music venues reported massively increased activity across the country’s bandhalls. Irish artists occupied eight of the top ten spaces on iTunes and shares in U2 were up fifteen percent while on the New York stock exchange Van Morrison reached a ten year high.

Officials at the newly formed Clerical Abuse Management Agency (CAMA) are working closely with senior members of the Catholic Church to identify the priests and members of the religious orders that will transfer to them under the new government sponsored Church rescue scheme.

‘The abuse scandals have left the Church morally bankrupt and the pending law suits look set to have a similar financial impact,’ claimed a CAMA spokesman today.

Under the new scheme the Church will transfer all clergy who may be subject to legal action to CAMA who will then become liable for the outstanding actions.

‘A functioning Church is vital to the smooth running of Irish society and therefore Irish people should be prepared to pay for it,’ Bishop Traynor Knowles told a press conference this afternoon. He rejected claims that this was placing an unfair burden on Irish taxpayers, ‘In his pastoral letter The Holy Father made it plain that the secularisation of Ireland was to blame for the abuse scandal. It is therefore fitting that Irish secular society picks up the bill.’

Bishop Knowles was also quick to defend the bishops’ handling of the crisis so far, ‘While outsiders may think the whole thing was incompetent corrupt mess, in Church circles there is an acknowledgement that Irish bishops have performed exceptionally well.’ But he dismissed talk of bonus payments for bishops as ‘idle speculation,’ and ‘not on the table at the present time.’

Former RTE economics editor Mr Lee sensationally quit his job last year to run in the South Dublin by-election and won the seat with 52% of the votes. However since then he claims to have been bitterly disappointed at having had absolutely no input into government policy.

A chastened Mr Lee explained what happened to a packed press conference of his peers yesterday afternoon. “It’s not like you think in there. For a start, there are all these different political parties and the one I happened to join were in opposition. No one told me but over the nine months I’ve realised that this means you don’t run the country. I had been sold a pup. I mean, I had a clear mandate to change the country and I really wanted to because I might have grandchildren some day and, as every one knows, the first question on their lips will be “what did you do during the great banking crisis?” But instead I’m told that there’s this guy Lenihan in charge of economics and he doesn’t give a damn what I think.’

Subsequent to realising that there was a parliamentary system with government and opposition Mr Lee appears to have been further disconcerted to learn of a hierarchy within the political parties themselves. ‘Everyone said that that the party I was in, Fianna Gael, were going to be the next government so I said could I be in charge of economics for them but it turns out they already have an economics team in place! I started making speeches saying that everything Lenihan did was rubbish — even when it was quite good — but that still didn’t please them. They wouldn’t talk to me and instead sent me off around the country doing a roadshow like Larry bloody Gogan.’

Someone suggested to me that I should prepare some policy documents and put them forward for consideration. But then  I realised I had nothing original to say, like Lenihan’s policies were actually pretty good and ours were rubbish. I mean, it’s one thing to criticise policies but coming up with them is sheer drudge and not the best use of my exceptional talents.’ Becoming visibly upset, Mr Lee continued, ‘Then there’s this horrible place called the Dail where you’re supposed to make speeches but hardly anyone turns up and, shockingly, the news often pays no attention to what you say. There were whole days where I talked to no one. I didn’t make one friend in my time in there.

Despite this, Mr Lee was offered a place on the Fine Gael front bench late last week but he refused : ‘I thought I could change Irish politics in nine months and when I discovered that I couldn’t because no one listened to me, I had no option but to resign. Like, where’s the instant gratification in years of hard work with no guarantee of success at the end of it?’

However, massive national and international supported have buoyed the position of the Irish Air traffic Controllers in their dispute with the Irish Aviation Authority. Time and again passengers at the country’s main airports on Wednesday repeated that they would sooner spend days sleeping on hard seats with their travel plans ruined rather than see the Controllers defeated. “It’s about what’s right,” said Mike from New York. “As I understand it, these guys are being upgraded from Windows XP to Vista. Who can blame them for being angry.”

Impact assistant general secretary Michael Landers who represents the workers was said to be quietly pleased, though not surprised, at the level of support for the hard-pressed workers. “I think people recognise that an average salary of €160,000 with 30% more in pension contributions is hardly sufficient to live on these days. Even our top paid Controllers earn barely more than the Prime Minister of France. The fact is that we have moderated our demands and are only seeking an increase of 6% because we understand that the economy has collapsed, tourism is in ruins, many businesses are on a knife edge and deflation is running at 6%.”

The dispute has clearly struck a chord, with local efforts to support the strikers from cake sales to sponsored walks being organised the length and breath of the country. Collectors outside the country’s dole offices have been inundated with contributions, with many of the unemployed pledging to go without a meal one day a week to allow them to contribute. Ryan Tubridy is to auction a pen he once used on the Late Late and Jedward plan to raise thousands through a sponsored silence. The People before Profit Alliance has announced a mass rally in Dublin for next week and tens of thousands are expected to turn out to support the Controllers. UK singer and campaigner Billy Bragg is organising a fund-raising concert in Newcastle at the weekend and U2 are expected to turn up at a Dublin benefit concert next week. Survivors of the Haiti earthquake were reportedly so distressed to learn of the Irish Air Traffic Controllers’ plight that they immediately refused all aid from Ireland directing that instead it be used to support the strikers.

Outside their meeting in Roscrea, Senior Air traffic Controller, Mick McCarthy, rolled down the window of his Maserati coupé to explain the Controller’s desperate plight. “Imagine you went into work one morning and you were told that you had to use a new computer — just like that. How would you feel? I mean, we’re only the second highest paid Air Traffic Controllers in the world. Look at this car — two years old. At this rate, I be still driving the same banger next year. Is that what the government want — to humiliate us?’

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey has had to amend his holiday plans but was said to have managed to leave the country by car ferry as the crisis broke while Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary called on Mr Dempsey to “get up off your backside and give these guys everything they want”.

Queen’s University linguist and head of Opacity Studies, Professor Ivan Colon, attempts to shed some light on recent, apparently confusing, statements issued by Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams.

‘You must remember that Sinn Feinese is a very distinct language,’ Professor Colon explained. ‘It has elements of both political speak and management speak but has its origins in an ancient, now largely forgotten, tongue called revolutionary socialist speak.’

Professor Colon believes in taking a Rosetta Stone approach to deciphering Sinn Feinese, ‘It only by looking at what was said before and what that meant that we can fully understand the language. ‘Thus we can now confidently assert that the Gerry Adams statement, I was never in the IRA actually means I was in the IRA. So was in and was never in can sometimes be interchangeable in Sinn Feinese  without any real change of meaning. There is also a sort of implied shorthand in certain statements. Consider the following Adams statement I was in the Civil Rights Association, which we now know means I was in the IRA but the Civil Rights Association were a lot more respectable, looking back.’

Professor Colon went on to explain that I don’t know and I didn’t know also occur frequently in Sinn Feinese and, unlike English, have very different meanings. ‘I don’t know would have been a common response to questions asked in Castlereagh Holding Centre (e.g. where is the arms dump?) and would now be translated by scholars to mean, you’ll never beat it out of me, you Orange knave.

‘I didn’t know,’ (e.g. in response to: why are you denying having four AK47s in your loft?) is usually taken to mean ‘I’ll get legal aid and members of your family may suffer horribly if you go through with this so prove it if you dare.’

Professor Colon admitted that the analysis of Sinn Feinese was still at a relatively primitive stage. Ambitious for the future, he is currently planning a year of study and a seeking substantial research grant in order to be able to comment authoritatively on a recent Adams statement which appears to have marked a further evolution of Sinn Feinese : I didn’t know my alleged paedophile brother was in Sinn Fein and was working with children in my constituency.

The professor sighed when reminded of the quotation. ‘I suspect that Adams may be trying to tell us that his career is over and his credibility in tatters, perhaps even that he believes in leprechauns, but we won’t really know until we can write the necessary algorithms for our translation software. To decipher that statement really is the holy grail for researchers right now.‘

As local authorities and Government departments played a game of “pass the parcel” in relation to responsibility for keeping the roads free of snow and ice, commentators have been warning for some days now that unless we display the ability to manage the crisis ourselves outside agencies will inevitably step in. Despite massive salt loans from the ECB and emergency grit allocations from the European Social Fund, much of the country remained paralysed today. There are immediate concerns that a forecasted fall of up to three centimetres of snow will result in all airports being closed indefinitely and near-total economic collapse.

Local councillors have been asking householders to bring whatever salt they have to their local depots where it may be used to grit the roads. Ministers have pointed out that the present cold snap was completely unpredictable and based entirely on world weather events which were outside our control. A spokesman explained that as the summer had been mild and the autumn wet, nothing in recent months had suggested that air temperatures could drop so dramatically in January. Opposition leaders have refuted this, claiming that our weather is cyclical and preparations should have been made for this downturn in our temperature.

Under the guidance of the IMF, the National Ice Management Agency has been set up to manage the salt deficits. Recapitalisation of the local councils’ salt reserves is expected to result in full restoration of salt supplies by early spring. A Special Purpose Vehicle will be used to distribute the salt to the authorities with senior meteorologists, untainted by the present debacle, at the wheel. In the meantime, many secondary roads which were built during the height of the boom will remain closed indefinitely and 100,000 public sector workers will be laid off.

In a further measure to alleviate the problem, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Gormley, has announced that a national scrappage scheme will be introduced to allow citizens trade in any car over ten years old for a pair of low-carbon skis.

Speaking on condition of anonymity Mr McC told a harrowing story that will be all too familiar to many of the Irish middle class, driven on to take on debt they couldn’t afford by a lax regulatory system and reckless government policies. Dragging on a roll-up,shuffling from foot to foot to keep warm, he explained, “I had been Minister for Finance for years. I thought I knew a thing or two about these things. I had a house and an investment property but I just felt it wasn’t enough. I had nowhere to stay for the Ryder Cup. My new job as EU Commissioner seemed to be going well and I could take all the days off I wanted. It seemed the obvious thing to do.” Unfortunately for Mr Mc and thousands like him, he has now lost his job and his property is worth half what he paid for it.

Mr McC, however, remains defiant. Accepting a cup of chicken soup off a SVP volunteer, he strongly counters suggestions that he could have made better choices. Did he feel that he was in some way responsible for his position? “I don’t. I think, the Irish economy, I’m prepared to defend many things that we did over the number of years that I was in office together with other people in the Government.”

Opening a can of Dutch Gold, Mr McC warmed to his theme: “People have to get things in perspective. Nobody could have predicted that the economy would collapse. The fundamentals were sound, we’d had the best finance minister in a generation and our property prices were higher than Manhattan and Moscow — who could have guessed that things would go wrong?”

Mr McC, unemployed, claims he’d “like to do some other things, not politics. Maybe get a racehorse.” He lowered his voice so as not to be heard by the nearby volunteers, ” I hate being surrounded by these leftie do-gooders. I actually have a €125k pension from the government and the same again in annual transitional payments from the Commissioner job so maybe I’ll just check into a hotel for the moment.”