It is "manageable", says Patrick Honohan, the governor of the Central Bank, but not without "a lot of pain". And we can maintain our economic independence and Eurozone membership without recourse to Europe's rescue fund or the IMF, says Jean Claude Trichet of the ECB, but only with "the delivery of an unequivocal commitment to correct the excessive deficit by 2014".

The EU Commission wants to know how we are going to do it. It wants the facts, the figures, the strategy. It wants to know where we can cut, where we should grow, where savings can be made, where taxes can be raised, what benefits curtailed, what efficiencies are achievable, what investments are worthwhile and which can be parked.

That need for information is shared by every citizen in this country. Nobody, after the events of 'Black Thursday', is unaware of the pain that will have to be borne. The odds of staying ahead of the IMF and the European Financial Stability Facility are now calculated at around 50-50. But those chances will not improve unless this government explains clearly what "pain" really means and persuades the country to support the strategy it is delivering to the EU.

Given the government's past performance, few would bet on that.

Brian Cowen has spoken of developing a "credible pathway to recovery". Notwithstanding that we all thought that we'd been tramping that road since the first austerity budget of 2008, it is now, with no pretence of a hands-off approach, a pathway mapped to the metre by Brussels.

Ollie Rehn, EU economics commissioner, is even emboldened to hint that our low corporation tax is hovering over the melting pot. We are retaining our sovereignty, but by a whisker.

At the moment, people are scared to death at the prospect of tax rises, welfare cuts and fewer public services. They are doubly petrified because they have been kept in a state of uncertainty about the original plans for the December budget, which, with a €3bn target for cuts, was to be harsh enough. Now, another layer of uneasiness comes with the revised target, which may go as high as €4bn. No hint or direction about the strategy being taken has been given, other than to rule out property tax, water tax and university fees. Hardly helpful.

Confusion cannot be allowed to fester in the way it has done in the past two years, the price of which became shockingly clear last Thursday.

As UCD economist and government adviser Colm McCarthy put it: "Ongoing uncertainty inhibits business confidence while clarity has a stimulatory effect."

The length of time it took to sort out the banks and set up Nama was inexcusable. The fact that the deficit cutting plans were veering so far off the "credible pathway" is another indictment of the government's ability to implement fiscal policy.

Complicating it all is the fact that this government, by all the polls, will not see the four-year policy through.

That reality adds an extra burden of responsibility on both Labour and Fine Gael, in whatever form they move from opposition to government, to be clear and unequivocal about their own plans for meeting Europe's targets and explaining clearly where differences lie.

When people begin to believe that we would be better off if the IMF came in because they would make the same cuts but without the politics and pandering to vested interests, there is a real credibility chasm for politicians of all hues to bridge.

Whoever is in charge will have a mammoth task in selling their strategy to the people.

Last week, former US president Bill Clinton, one of the greatest persuaders in politics and a great friend of this country, provided an intriguing insight into how he would do it.

He did one interview with Newstalk radio and his approach bears quoting at some length.

"If we're going to ask the people not just here, but in the United States or anywhere else, that if we're going to swallow difficult pills in the short run, then that medicine has to be coupled with a strategy to get well," he said.

Policy has to be personalised, with its effects on individual sectors and communities explained in comprehensible terms, right down to the effect on the individual.

"You have to say 'It's going to be horrible for two years, but here's what we're going to do to get bank lending going again in Ireland. Here's what we're going to do to get foreign investment going again. Here's how all this works so that you and your children and your family and your community and our whole nation will be better off. And five years from now you will see... we'll be more productive than ever before, we'll have it worked out'."

We face into incredibly tough times, but unless hope is stitched into the strategy for recovery, that "credible pathway" will go nowhere.