The self-confidence that Brian Lenihan exuded last week when he spoke of his illness was in stark contrast to the almost complete absence from public view of Mr Invisible himself, Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

The taoiseach, aside from the odd bit of pontification in the Sunday Independent, has largely gone to ground and seems unwilling or unable to confront the electorate's crisis of confidence about the country's economic fortunes. Instead, Cowen has dropped out of sight, as have other senior ministers, leaving Lenihan alone to address the economic crisis.

Perhaps it's different at the cabinet table, but in public at least, there's only one person willing to stick his head above the parapet and the perception is that Cowen is cowering in the background, perhaps afraid that his record as finance minister will come under further scrutiny.

Cowen, after all, was the man who failed to sign a commencement order for legislation that would have closed the "resting on contract" loophole that allowed developers to avoid stamp duty. This failure contributed to the spiral in development land prices and the bust that inevitably followed. It also deprived the state of the revenue that would have been raised, instead putting it into the hands of company owners who were selling their property assets.

Its use was also widespread: the Goodbody report into the practice found that about two in five of all land transactions in Ireland availed of the loophole, costing the exchequer more than €250m in 2006 alone.

Cowen's lack of visibility as the bad weather caused chaos last week also irked. Dublin alone resembled a scene from Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow as the cancellation of buses led to thousands of people walking home in the dusk, often for hours, while those sitting in traffic suffered just as badly. As usual, there seemed to be no plan, despite the fact that the economic cost through lost labour hours was huge and will hurt many businesses that were already struggling.

Tomorrow, though, Cowen may break that mould. Sources suggest he is planning a major economic address at the Citi Capital Markets roadshow which takes place at the Shelbourne Hotel. The roadshow will deal with the outlook for this year and beyond and one imagines it will be relatively gloomy.

Cowen has an opportunity here to use his speech to take centre stage.

He must seize it.